Various industries are beginning to see the benefits of using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, for improving their operations, including the shipbuilding industry, which sees the technology being of benefit in terms of facilitating and speeding up various construction stages, including inspection, according to World Maritime News.
It was previously reported that the Abu Dhabi Ports Company had installed drones for security purposes, however, this new concept could present new opportunities for the industry.
To read a Technical Paper about the use of security drones at ports, click here
Poland’s shipbuilding industry has recently been using drones to look around the inside spaces of a ship to improve the process of repair.
Polish shipyard Remontowa said: “The contact with the tank wall is possible due to propellers being protected by special frames.
“The drone demonstrated excellent stability in confined space allowing for good quality visual inspection material recording. The experiments performed provided a promising outcome.”
These security drones could play an important role within the container port and shipping industry, especially in preventing fatal incidents such as those seen at Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering’s shipyard recently, where two people were killed as a result of a ship fire.
The incident at Tianjin Port is another example of where security drones could be used to visually inspect harmful chemicals or to identify anybody who is not authorised to access warehousing space at a port.
