Texas DOT conducts safer, more efficient bridge inspections
See how the Texas Department of Transportation (DOT) conducts infrastructure inspections on challenging structures like the iconic Pecos River High Bridge using Skydio X10.
They’re able to see the underside of this steel bridge in detail and create a digital twin to monitor it over time in a way that’s much safer for inspectors, less disruptive for the driving public, and more efficient all around.
- [upbeat music]
- So this morning we are in the Laredo district out here
- in Southwest Texas,
- headed
- towards the Pecos River High Bridge.
- It's a pretty monumental bridge for this district and one of the
- better looking iconic bridges in the state of Texas.
- Every bridge on the National Bridge Inventory is required by the Federal
- Highway
- Administration to be inspected every two years.
- That's concrete bridge, steel bridges, and timber bridges.
- That's 57,000 bridges.
- Steel bridges take a lot more time to inspect.
- It's a little more tedious than our concrete structures are.
- We're here to come out ahead of our
- NSTM inspection coming up and see if there's anything that we want
- them to look at in addition or spend a little more time on.
- We have n- no safe way to inspect other than closing
- part of the
- bridge down, which takes a long time. It's gonna create a lot of traffic
- problems.
- So we've been thinking of what's a good alternative.
- Now with the drone, we're really looking forward to being able
- to come out and use
- that technology in a safe way for us and not to have an impact on the driving
- public.
- There have been times where the density of traffic or
- the type of bridge the contractors are
- inspecting is just either too dangerous
- or too cumbersome to be able to inspect it the way that you could with
- an X10. So being able to deploy X10s just allows
- us to have
- no excuses as to why we can't observe an asset.
- It
- doesn't look like
- there's, like, any scratch on the concrete.
- Any wheels where it's moved at all.
- So with the X10, I got it two months ago, and so I try and fly it as much as I
- can. Um, but I have probably flown six or seven missions.
- I'm coming this way about 30 feet off.
- Oh, I see you.
- I'm, I'm back here.
- One of the features of the X10 that is really helpful for us
- is that some of the more critical parts and the important parts of the bridge that
- you need to inspect are underneath the bridge.
- The added benefit that we get from the X10 is that 360
- degree, very robust obstacle avoidance system.
- See how you moved out away from it? That was the obstacle avoidance doing
- that for
- you. We can focus on the actual data collection
- and inspection that we're trying to
- do, as opposed to having anxiety about flying
- in and
- around and underneath a really complex structure.
- And then being able to conduct 3D scans and create a digital twin of that
- asset will allow us to ensure that we mitigate the
- risk of just human error.
- We're trying to move towards every structure in our inventory to have a
- digital twin, and every two years have a 3D scan done so
- we can
- see three-dimensional decay or improvements of the structure.
- And hopefully with the technology, it'll increase our efficiency with
- inspection.
- [gentle music]
- There is something to be said about the benefit of being able to reach out and
- touch something, and the way that bridge
- regulations and standards are right now at both the state
- and federal
- level, there are certain things that will always be an
- arm's length inspection.
- But the ability to utilize the X10 to go
- out there and be a force multiplier and
- enable our bridge teams to actually be more efficient with their inspections
- just ensures that we're gonna be able to maintain all of the assets that we're
- responsible for. There are still folks that we talk
- to that were unaware that you could utilize
- drones to do infrastructure inspection, that you could utilize drones
- to collect information for digital twins.
- And the more folks that we show this to, the more they're just blown away at the
- resolution of data that you can get, the density of data that you can get, the
- types of point clouds and models you can create from this.
- So as more folks learn about this, I think we're gonna see that essentially
- deployed across all types of municipalities.
- Touchdown.
- [upbeat music]
Watch Time
4 Mins 33 Secs