OUC Drone Program Takes Flight

In the aftermath of a hurricane or other major storm, one of the first steps to restoring power is surveying the impact to powerlines and other infrastructure. However, downed trees, flood waters and other dangerous conditions can make certain areas impassable or hazardous to access at ground level for post-storm inspections.

To counter these challenges and improve reliability, OUC’s Emerging Technologies Department is implementing aerial drones for damage assessments. To prepare, OUC is training a team of drone pilots to operate the craft around OUC assets and obtain the necessary data for line technicians and safety assessors from this “bird’s eye view.”

There are currently four drones, officially called unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), in OUC’s fleet. This includes two Skydio X10s, one Skydio 2+ and one Teal 2 Golden Eagle. There are two more Skydio X10s on the way.

Four pilots from OUC’s Emerging Technologies team are in the program.

The drones feature high-resolution visual cameras with zoom lenses and thermal cameras, a memory card to store photos and videos, and a battery with about 30 minutes of life. Thermal imaging is key because when a crew is dispatched to an outage location, it’s unclear how far that outage extends. After all, you can’t see electricity in the lines. But a “hot” or “cold” reading from a drone’s thermal camera can indicate if a transformer or other piece of equipment is energized.

“We can keep the drone about 50 feet from any line or other infrastructure and be able to tell the type of asset on that pole or any disconnections with just the visual camera. The thermal camera gives us the temperature of pole-mounted transformers, isolators or fuses to let us know if something is running too hot or too cold,” said Maguire Mulligan, Research Engineer with OUC’s Emerging Technologies team, who is overseeing the drone program, as well as training the pilots.

“We’ll be able to identify those issues at a distance, which will really foster efficiency throughout the entire storm season by allowing us to do our inspections safer and faster.”

On a recent morning, Karen Keenan, a Research Engineer in the Emerging Technologies department, conducted a training flight at OUC’s Pershing Technical Training facility under Mulligan’ direction. After going through the pre-flight checklist to ensure the drone is in good working order and filling out the paperwork required before every flight by the FAA, Keenan takes to the sky. Her training mission: to safely approach and circle the top of a power pole. Keenan said that “orbiting” in this way was one of the toughest skills to master.

Mulligan explains that all OUC drone pilots must first obtain a Part 107 Remote Pilot Certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). While potential pilots learn important regulations and best practices during the certification process, the actual flying of a drone is not covered.

That’s where OUC’s drone training program comes in.

“Once they have their FAA certification, I’ll take them through my basic, intermediate and advanced training where I teach them how to fly a drone safely and how to operate close to power lines and vegetation,” said Mulligan.

The training will allow pilots to head out into the field this storm season, if necessary, to help in the response effort. Drones were deployed during Hurricane Milton in 2024.

“When an opportunity arises, when there is a downed tree or flooded area, for example, we’ll use a drone to get advanced intel of a situation. Drones have a unique ability as flying cameras in the sky to take photos and videos of things we can’t see from the ground,” explained Mulligan.

Fabian Richards, OUC’s Manager of Distribution Planning and Reliability Engineering, has worked with the drone team to test the devices in the field and sees them playing an important role in storm response. He said that drone pilots will work closely with engineers on his team to conduct safety inspections and assess storm damage in hard-to-reach areas.

“From a safe location, the pilot will deploy the drone and navigate to a pole line of the engineer’s choosing based on the information they have about what is out of power. With the drone we can see how many wires came down – did all three phases come down, or just two? Are the insulators broken? Did the pole snap? Is there a tree branch down?” said Fabian.

Fabian said that the engineer will assess damage in real time using the screen on the drone controller, but images recorded by the drone will also be examined later in more detail. This will help them determine what is needed to repair any damage and restore power.

“It is exciting that OUC is embracing this technology and new capabilities to aid in storm response,” said Fabian. “If the need arises this hurricane season, we will definitely leverage the drones.”

Although they’re focused on storm response for now, Mulligan foresees a time when drones could be used for varied tasks, including inspections of power plants, solar arrays, and other OUC facilities and assets.

“We’re getting in touch with departments on the operations side, like vegetation management, distribution, or transmission, and just doing things alongside them to understand what works and what doesn’t, so we know where drones can be a benefit,” said Mulligan.