Introduction
In Malaysia, the mobile
communication coverage is relayed via communication towers. Before building a
tower, site survey of panorama view at 200 to 300 feet above ground level is
needed to find out any obstructions along line-of-sight. Most of the time, the
surveyor will engage crane service to lift a person to the height and take
pictures of panorama view. Similar practices are conducted for regular
inspections and maintenance works. The crane has its limitations. The solution
to this is to deploy UAV to perform site survey, inspection and maintenance of
tower structure s and antennas. There are two advantages. First, it is more
cost effective. Second, the portability and mobility of UAV enables the
operation to be carried out anywhere with the permission from local aviation
authority.
UAV
Platform
There are two types of
UAV commonly used in commercial sector. Fixed wing is powered by engine to move
its propellers. The advantage is higher power to weight ratio than a comparable
electric motor leading to higher payload capability and long-range operation.
The actual payload capacity allows for the installation of instrumentation and
sensors needed to fulfill the requirements of the mission. The long-range
operation will allow for wider area surveillance (Jaimes, Kota, & Gomez, 2008) .
On the other hand, a quad-rotor UAV
are highly maneuverable. It has the potential to hover at required altitude,
able to take-off and land vertically within small areas. This capability has
huge advantage for commercial applications as long runway is not necessary for
the mission. Quad-rotor UAV has four motors located at the front, rear, left
and right ends of across frame. Changing the speed of rotation of each motor
controls the quad-rotor. The front and rear rotors rotate in a counter-clockwise direction while the
left and right rotors rotate in a clockwise direction to balance the torque
created by the spinning rotors (Jaimes, Kota, & Gomez, 2008) .
For site survey and maintenance
purposes, the recommended platform is quad-rotor UAV. The most important
attribute is its hovering property. Visual inspection of tower structures, line
transmission and antenna discs requires the UAV to be hovered at certain
altitude and remains static so that the controller on ground is able to zoom
and focus the camera on defective areas for detail analysis. As for the site
survey, the UAV is used to hover and to remain static at 200ft to 300ft above
ground level in order to take panorama view of the site surrounding. It is
important to ensure that there is no obstructions along the line-of-sight of
the communication tower so that the transmission of signals can be received by
all mobile phone users in the future.
Legal
Issues
According to Department of Civil
Aviation (DCA) of Malaysia, the controller of UAV, also known as UAV pilot must
be a private pilot license (PPL) holder for the UAV with weight more than 20kgs
(DCA, 2016). In view of this, it is mandatory to deploy UAV with weight less
than 20kgs for site survey and maintenance purposes so that the controller may
not be PPL holder. The idea of deploying UAV is to reduce high cost of engaging
crane services and also to reduce the time taken to take videos and photos of
the site in order to achieve cost efficiency. Nevertheless, it is important to
demonstrate to aviation authority that the UAV controller with the weight of
UAV less than 20kgs is well trained with basic flight knowledge, human factors
and situational awareness. It is mandatory to educate the controller that
safety is paramount for any flight operations.
Conclusion
The use of UAV to carry out site survey
and inspections on communication tower is inevitable. It is the only way to
achieve cost efficiency and increase productivity. Equally important is to
enhance overall safety of tower inspection. Climbing on the communication tower
and to perform inspection to locate defects at the same time requires
experience technicians and inspectors. Proper safety measurements such as
safety harness, wind conditions must be observed. Liability is too great for any
company if someone fall from the tower accidentally. UAV is the only solution
to perform general inspection quickly. If defects are found, inspector can
target on them and time taken to repair will be relatively shorter.
Reference
Department of
Civil Aviation. (2016, September 12). Aeronautical Information Services.
Retrieved from http://aip.dca.gov.my/aip%20pdf%20new/AIC/AIC%20200804.pdf
Jaimes, A., Kota, S.,
& Gomez, J. (2008). An approach to surveillance an area using swarm of
fixed wing and quad-rotor unmanned aerial vehicles UAV(s). IEEE.
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