Drone demo at TEL tunnel for visiting Finnish Transport Minister
SINGAPORE — With the Land Transport Authority (LTA) having put out plans to use drones to check construction progress along the Thomson-East Coast Line (TEL), a demonstration of how they work was held on Monday (Sept 18) along the rail line.
SINGAPORE — With the Land Transport Authority (LTA) having put out plans to use drones to check construction progress along the Thomson-East Coast Line (TEL), a demonstration of how they work was held on Monday (Sept 18) along the rail line.
This was done as Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan hosted his Finnish counterpart Anne Berner for a visit here. They dropped by a stretch of tunnel connecting the Orchard and Orchard Boulevard stations along the line, which is still in construction and expected to open in stages from 2019.
Using a DJI Phantom 4 Pro+ drone, which has a battery life of around 30 minutes, the unmanned aircraft system flew into the tunnel, covering 2m per second.
This means that it can cover around 2.5km at one go, taking videos and photos as it zips through the centre of the tunnel. To visually inspect the 800m stretch of tunnel connecting the Orchard and Orchard Boulevard stations, a four-man team will need around two or three days to first assemble scaffolding.
Then the inspection, which will involve another three engineers, can take up to three months.
With a drone, the process can be drastically reduced: It takes just three people to execute the inspection — one pilot, a co-pilot, and a safety observer.
There are now around 30 LTA engineers who are trained to pilot the drones.
Before she watched the demonstration, Ms Berner, Finland’s Minister for Transport and Communications, was given an overview of the plans for the 31-station TEL.
As part of a trial, the LTA will deploy drones at 10 work sites for the TEL, which include the station sites at Orchard Road, Marina Bay, Gardens by the Bay, Upper Thomson, Great World City and Havelock.
They will fly within the sites to inspect construction activities at locations where access might be difficult, including tunnels.
In March, the authority had called for proposals from industry players to design and develop trials for drones to be used during checks on MRT and road tunnels.
The use of such automated technologies would ensure more accurate checks and free up engineers’ time, enabling them to focus on analysing the captured data in order to recommend any necessary remedial measures, it said. The LTA will complete its evaluation of the submitted proposals by the end of the year.
Last November, the Transport Ministry awarded the master contract for drone services to three companies, which would allow other public agencies to tap the technology and services. The Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore is to administer the two-year contract, which ends on Oct 31 next year.