The use of drones for aircraft safety inspections has increased in recent years due to the advancement of technology.
Korean Air is believed to be the first in the industry to use a swarm of drones for visual inspections in a process that cuts the time it takes to complete such a task in half.
Korean Air uses a drone to inspect its aircraft. Korean Air.
Maintenance specialists used to have to do a visual check of the aircraft from heights of up to 20 meters, but now drones can do that.
Korean Air built its own drone. The machine is 39 inches across and weighs over 12 pounds.
Korean Air uses four drones at the same time during an inspection activity inside an aircraft hangar. Each one has high-tech cameras that can identify details as small as 0.04 inches (1mm) in size.
The drones are powered by custom software that tells them to gather imagery from specific parts of the aircraft. The remaining drones are programmed to complete the work if one or more of the drones fails.
The engineering team can reduce inspection time from 10 hours to four by using four drones.
Korean Air shares inspection data through the cloud, which will allow employees to easily check inspection results anywhere and anytime. The airline has put in place a collision avoidance system to keep safety distances from surrounding facilities and prevent break-aways from the mission area.
The operators of the procedure are trying to increase the accuracy of the process. Korean Air will implement the swarm system sometime next year if these go according to plan.
We first heard about airlines using drones for aircraft inspection in 2015, when easyJet revealed it was testing its own system. Austrian Airlines started using drones for the same kind of work.
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