Drone-based inspections of roads, bridges, and other transportation assets have proven to be a gamechanger for government agencies around the world. The speed, accuracy, and safety enhancements enabled by uncrewed systems has helped transportation professionals better monitor conditions and detect problems at earlier stages, while keeping traffic flowing and maintaining public safety.

NestGen’s AI-Powered Monitoring and Inspection for Italian Highways with Docked Drones session presented real-life examples of how drones are improving transportation inspections operations. The session also explained how new advances, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and docked drone systems, can bring even greater ROI to these missions.

The session was presented by Nicola Marietti, CEO of Rome-based Aiview Group. Marietti explained that his company has 10 years of experience in the transportation market. During that time, Aiview has performed more 3,000 remote missions, including traffic monitoring and emergency services operations.

Central to their work is the integration of drones into customer workflows. To this end, Marietti said, the company has focused on introducing their remote-control center model for autonomous drone operations into existing transportation inspection processes. “The drone has become part of the process,” Marietti said. “People are really happy to have something that can be launched when they need it or that can perform planned flights during the day, just to check that everything is okay.”

To illustrate Aiview’s approach, Marietti took session attendees through two use cases, both of which showed how drones and remote-control centers combined with drone docks and AI processes led to improvements in accuracy, efficiency, and safety. As he discussed these projects, Marietti touched on how challenges around regulatory approval and cybersecurity can impact UAV-based transportation inspections.

However, Marietti asserted that these challenges can be overcome, and the future is bright for using drones, docks, and AI to improve transportation inspections. He sees autonomous systems as being central to these operations going forward.

“Autonomous means a lot of things that needs to be developed,” stated Marietti. “We need to put the drone inside the customer infrastructure. In this way, we will win our battle for the autonomous drone. Otherwise, it's only a service to apply to something.”