Hepta’s self-service platform speeds up drone image analysis

PRESS RELEASE

March 18, 2021

Heptainsights.com

Hepta’s self-service platform speeds up drone image analysis

Following years of internal use and improved performance in analyzing electricity grids across the EU, the Estonian-founded tech company, Hepta is releasing a freemium version of its AI-driven software, uBird, to the drone operator community.

Originally developed as an automation tool for power line and utility inspection to increase the accuracy of defect detection, the uBird platform now effectively extends to the wider infrastructure-inspection industry. The uBird platform is intended for all drone operators who analyze large numbers of aerial or geo-referenced images of infrastructure, typically increasing the accuracy of results by more than 33%.

According to the company’s CEO, Henri Klemmer, applications that use machine learning for automating processes in visual inspection industries, such as with  infrastructure inspection, are hard to come by at the freemium level. “Having scrutinized our software for high-quality output for some time now, we decided to make the uBird platform available to all drone operators who struggle with similar challenges. We see great benefits in raising the industry standard by speeding up drone data management,” Klemmer explained.

“Industrial defect inspection is almost always connected with some level of risk, the timely mitigation of which can avoid damage and improve service quality in many fields, like utilities, real estate, and construction,” Klemmer added.

The software allows uploading and managing thousands of images at once, detecting the exact position of the object, and turning the images into practical results in minutes. The use of AI to find and annotate details on the uploaded photos systematically speeds up the analysis of large data sets. The tool can be used to share reports with clients and maintenance teams via the cloud, PDF, XLS, or enterprise integrations like SAP – a feature that has been greatly appreciated by existing users.

Long-term plans for the company include creating digital twins for various infrastructure, including powerlines, gas pipelines and telecommunications, as well as other sectors.

About Hepta

Hepta digitizes the inspection of power lines and other infrastructure by automating it with drones and AI-driven analysis. The company offers a full array of services, from drone-based data collection to data analysis.

Different sensors and inputs are used for data capture, including photos, LiDAR scanning, thermal, orthophotos, corona discharge detection, and photogrammetry. This enables a large variety of projects, from grid defect detection and 3D models to prediction scenarios with vegetation and creating a full digital twin of utilities.

Hepta provides grid inspection services for DSOs and TSOs, railway, and communication companies in 11 countries, including Germany, Portugal, Finland, and Ukraine. As of 2021, Hepta is entrusted to carry out over 3,000 kilometers of monthly inspections.

Learn more about uBird here.

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