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Drones that recharge directly on transmission lines

ycombinator.com

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Re: Drones that recharge directly on transmission lines

#21

Post by themafia »

yorwba wrote: post #11
ceejayoz wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems entirely unviable to me. Have you met… people? “Trust me, bro!” is something I wish my power company would do, but they installed a meter instead.

What's unviable about having the power company vet the thing that reports "I drew X joules from line Y" like they would vet any other meter?

Does the device report directly to the power company, or is that data aggregated and reported in some other format?

If it's the latter then hand editing is all it takes to create fraud.

Re: Drones that recharge directly on transmission lines

#22

Post by _qua »

Sniffnoy wrote: post #2

Huh, is that legal? I mean I guess it is when the power company is the customer, as they talk about, but otherwise?

Presumably they'd be doing inspections for the power company, who probably don't care if some minuscule amounts of power are consumed directly during operations.

Re: Drones that recharge directly on transmission lines

#23

Post by znnajdla »

Sniffnoy wrote: post #2

Huh, is that legal? I mean I guess it is when the power company is the customer, as they talk about, but otherwise?

There is a not so subtle hint in the description that they were mainly inspired by military applications (Air Force, DARPA). Legality doesn’t matter when you’re in enemy territory.

Re: Drones that recharge directly on transmission lines

#24

Post by szundi »

themafia wrote: post #19

> Removing battery swaps is the last step to deploy UAVs autonomously at scale. I can't say, as a citizen, that I'm particularly excited about this. > Autonomous drones can deliver over 20x the inspection coverage for the same cost. And we have 20x the manpower to review this footage? I wonder if you're just generating a bunch of data that cannot be practically used. "More coverage" isn't always the best answer. "Bet…

[dead]

Re: Drones that recharge directly on transmission lines

#25

Post by johndevor »

darth_avocado wrote: post #9

As long as they can cover the liability when inevitably one of this sets off a wildfire in California that costs Billions. (I think it’s a cool idea if done right, they are after all trying to fix the problem of wildfires anyway which makes me hopeful)

I mean, they'd also fix fire detection as well.

Re: Drones that recharge directly on transmission lines

#27

Post by rsyring »

themafia wrote: post #19

> Removing battery swaps is the last step to deploy UAVs autonomously at scale. I can't say, as a citizen, that I'm particularly excited about this. > Autonomous drones can deliver over 20x the inspection coverage for the same cost. And we have 20x the manpower to review this footage? I wonder if you're just generating a bunch of data that cannot be practically used. "More coverage" isn't always the best answer. "Bet…

> And we have 20x the manpower to review this footage?

I was involved with a startup that did inspections of power generation windmills. The computer vision anomaly detection was really good and that was about five years ago. The goal was to have the automated visual inspections route images with suspected anomalies to humans for review and it was working well the last time I heard.

Compared to having a human who needs to rappel down to the blades for a manual inspection, this is a huge productivity and safety boost.

Re: Drones that recharge directly on transmission lines

#29

Post by renewiltord »

themafia wrote: post #19

> Removing battery swaps is the last step to deploy UAVs autonomously at scale. I can't say, as a citizen, that I'm particularly excited about this. > Autonomous drones can deliver over 20x the inspection coverage for the same cost. And we have 20x the manpower to review this footage? I wonder if you're just generating a bunch of data that cannot be practically used. "More coverage" isn't always the best answer. "Bet…

[dead]

Re: Drones that recharge directly on transmission lines

#30

Post by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF »

themafia wrote: post #19

> Removing battery swaps is the last step to deploy UAVs autonomously at scale. I can't say, as a citizen, that I'm particularly excited about this. > Autonomous drones can deliver over 20x the inspection coverage for the same cost. And we have 20x the manpower to review this footage? I wonder if you're just generating a bunch of data that cannot be practically used. "More coverage" isn't always the best answer. "Bet…

Gosh I hope my house isn't inspection coverage
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