Drones for Transportation Infrastructure
contact usHow Skydio Drones are Used in Transportation Infrastructure
Bridge Inspection
Fly up close to inspect and document critical components of bridge support and truss structures safely with 360° obstacle avoidance.
Bridge Planning and Documentation
Capture detailed imagery and produce high resolution models of the bridge area with Skydio 3D Scan for archival purposes.
Railroad Monitoring
Perform frequent track inspections and patrol the yard with Skydio drones to identify and document issues and keep the railroad network secure.
Post Disaster Evaluation
Provide documentation of damaged infrastructure during a natural disaster and see where roads are flooded to make a better determination where to route people and supplies.
Inspection eBook Vol 3 - Transportation Management
Learn the benefits of using autonomous navigation and capture drones for infrastructure inspection, documentation, and tracking progress.
Current Transportation Infrastructure Inspection is Inefficient and Dangerous
Dangerous Human Inspections
Scaffolding climbs, scissor lifts, and other human-based inspection methods can be dangerous to workers, as well as time consuming.
Manual Drone Inspections
Manual drones are expensive and have untrustworthy obstacle avoidance and fail to work in GPS denied environments requiring many hours of pilot training to avoid crashes.
Skydio Drones Improve Transportation Infrastructure Inspection
Inspect Efficiently and Without Interruption
Enable individual pilots to do more inspections and monitoring in less time of critical bridge and railroad infrastructure.
- AI-assisted navigation, thanks to Skydio Autonomy Enterprise, reduces the training burden and makes operations safer and more efficient, even in obstacle dense environments such as bridge truss structures.
- Autonomous capture using Skydio 3D Scan enables you to automate infrastructure and bridge data capture and maintenance assessments with minimal preparation.
Capture High Quality Site Data
Intelligent AI-powered autonomy allows inspectors to capture data at their precise specifications.
- Close proximity obstacle avoidance allows the drone to fly safely and closely around concrete and support structures to get to the inspection target.
- Adaptive capture using Skydio 3D Scan helps you capture comprehensive data with resolution as low as 0.65 mm/pixel.
- Dual capture available with Skydio X2 allows you capture images and videos with both color and thermal cameras.
Operate with Utmost Safety
Fly with confidence in the most difficult infrastructure environments thanks to Skydio Autonomy Enterprise.
- Computer vision navigation allows you to fly safely and reliably even near metal structures and under bridges. Skydio drones don’t rely on GPS connectivity or magnetometers for steady flight.
- 360° collision avoidance helps you inspect around railroad and transportation infrastructure environments surrounded by metal, concrete, and water.
Breaking Regulatory Barriers for BVLOS Operations
Beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) drone operations are critical to enable workers to inspect wider areas, larger structures, dangerous or difficult-to-reach environments while reducing visual observer and inspection costs. Skydio’s groundbreaking autonomy is the key to unlock safe and routine BVLOS.
NCDOT Conducts BVLOS Bridge Inspections With Skydio Drones
North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) received the first-of-its-kind, state-wide FAA BVLOS approval to inspect bridges using Skydio drones which grants inspectors unparalleled safety and efficiency.
BNSF Railway Remotely Operating Dock-based Skydio Drones
Under the waiver, BNSF may remotely operate Skydio drones in docks beyond line of sight above rural portions of its network for purposes of infrastructure inspection, patrol, and training.
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SKYDIO DOCK AND REMOTE OPS
Remotely operated.
AI powered.
Continuously monitor and inspect remote sites and infrastructure without the need to have a pilot on-site.
Learn about Skydio Solutions for Bridge and Railroad Inspection
Skydio X2 Color/Thermal
Rugged, long-range drone built for inspection work
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Skydio 2+ for Enterprise
Our popular specialized autonomous drone
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Skydio 3D Scan
Autonomous data capture software for S2+ and X2
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Skydio Cloud
Connected flight operations for your Skydio fleet
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3D Model for As-Built Assessment
This model was captured autonomously by Skydio 2 with 3D Scan to document this 75 foot bridge and dam, which was then processed in Bentley to generate the 3D model. The model required 568 photos at a 2.6 mm GSD and was captured in 62 minutes flight time.
Transportation Infrastructure
Customer Quotes
North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT)
Safety is our top priority at NCDOT, and this new system helps improve the safety of not only our bridges and other infrastructure, but of our inspectors as well.”
Eric Boyette
Secretary of Transportation
BNSF Railway
We have been testing Skydio Cloud as part of the early access program and we are excited by the prospect of managing our vehicles, closely tracking our usage metrics and operating our distributed fleet”
Todd Graetz
Director, RPA/UAS
Resources
Transportation Inspection Articles
Drone Autonomy For Bridge Inspection
2D GPS Capture: A new capture mode for Skydio 3D Scan
Skydio Cloud Unlocks Connected Flight Operations
X2 Color, 3D Scan & Cloud: An Integrated Solution for Commercial Drone Inspection
Product Datasheets
Skydio 3D Scan
Skydio X2E Color/Thermal
Skydio Cloud
Skydio 2+ Enterprise
Webinars
How to Build a Mission-Critical Drone Inspection Program - NCDOT
AI Meets Inspection: How Autonomous Drones are Changing the Game in Enterprise
What’s New with Skydio: Introducing Skydio 2+
From manual drones to Skydio: An industry veteran on best practices for the Age of Autonomy
