Can you describe your project in a few words?

The goal of the SuperPower v2.0 is to develop the first fully automated power line inspection value chain powered by superresolution. Currently, over 100 million kilometres of power lines are being inspected mainly using crewed helicopters, which are inefficient, pollutant and have personal risk.

Drones could perform this kind of inspection, but one of the main challenges is the quality of the images taken by drones, as the sensors onboard the drone are usually much smaller and with lower resolution than crewed helicopters’ sensors. That is why we are working to integrate superresolution technologies to enhance the quality of the imagery taken by drones automatically.

The project will build on top of the previous project (SuperPower V1.0), where we achieve to develop the first superresolution system to enhance visual photos for power line inspections. In this second project, we are developing the following:

• A superresolution module to enhance thermal images.
• Integrating both superresolution modules (visual + thermal) in the inspection process.
• Creating an automatic power line defect detection with this imagery.

Who will help implement the AI solution?

We represent the whole value chain of the solution: FuVeX as a drone developer and operator, ATLAS as a data analysis company, and UFD-Naturgy as the third most significant Spanish utility. Consequently, we will work on a TRL7 solution that verifies the product-market fit. The goal is to continue the development after the project has ended, achieving TRL9 in 2025.

What is the AI solution the project plans to implement?

We aim to deploy superresolution technologies to enable the use of drones in power line inspection, achieving the same data quality as crewed helicopters.