The N.C. Department of Transportation has another new tool\nto help make our roadways safer: Drones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This week, the Marc Basnight Bridge over Oregon Inlet became\nthe first bridge in the state inspected using a drone as part of the regular\nbiennial inspection process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Inspection crews monitored live high-definition video feeds\nfrom the drone as it was flown around the bridge\u2019s 10 largest columns, looking\nfor any potential defects that would require further action. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
NCDOT will use drones to conduct bridge inspections faster,\nsaving money and reducing the need for lane closures. Drones will not replace a\ntraditional visual inspection in most instances. However, they will be used to\nsupplement traditional inspections and add great benefit by being able to\ninspect areas of the bridge that are difficult to reach during a traditional\nvisual inspection. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A waiver granted to NCDOT in 2020 by the Federal Aviation\nAdministration allows the department to operate drones beyond visual line of\nsight (BVLOS) when inspecting bridges. This lets the operator fly the drone\naround pillars, between girders, and even inside columns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The drone used in this case, a Skydio 2, is equipped with\ndetect-and-avoid technology that allows it to operate within a foot of the\nbridge structure without risk of crash. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The N.C. Department of Transportation has another new tool to help make our roadways safer: Drones. This week, the Marc Basnight Bridge over Oregon Inlet became the first bridge in the state inspected using a drone as part of the regular biennial inspection process. Inspection crews monitored live high-definition video feeds from the drone as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":17825,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,127],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-north-carolina","category-unmanned-systems"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/NC-Drone-2021-02-27-edit.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17824"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17826,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17824\/revisions\/17826"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}