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BT’s Head of Customer Innovation, Matthew Key, has revealed the company’s plans to use drones for vital repair work in rural areas where it would be slower to get an engineer out to fix an issue. In a blog post, he wrote: “With a little creativity, drones could change the world.”
The change which Key speaks of has already begun. Nokia Networks has deployed some of their drones in the UAE to carry-out several important network tasks. In Dubai, Nokia’s drones assist with; tower inspections, radio planning, line-of-sight testing, and network optimisation ahead of large scale events.
We could use drones to deliver urgent parts for our network. This would be especially useful for rural, hard-to-reach areas across the UK.
Using a drone for an inspection is not just safer than sending a person; it can also be much quicker than setting-up safety equipment to scale a tower. Of course drones will have to be adapted for severe weather conditions, but this could make surveying for repairs possible when otherwise it would not have been feasible. The drones, when performing a tower inspection, are able to deliver a high-quality site audit with unique and detailed panoramic and top-down views of the lattice tower captured in one pass.
Radio-planning and Line-of-Sight (LoS) testing can also be performed via drone which allows engineers to improve the quality of networks in areas through ensuring certain factors don’t become an issue. This could be avoiding a certain frequency which is known to be impacted by trees, whether boosting the antenna power would help cover a particular distance without a severe impact on latency, and simulate what the performance would be like through making changes such as antenna height and location.
Whilst the drones being used for Nokia are currently focused on testing, BT is also looking into drones for carrying out actual repair work or delivering urgent parts to engineers. Key said: “We could use drones to deliver urgent parts for our network. This would be especially useful for rural, hard-to-reach areas across the UK. It would be a much faster way to get things to where they need to be and improve the customer experience.”
He continues: “If your network is damaged by a flood, or another natural disaster, drones could fly over and assess what needs to be done — and we could get you back online as quickly as possible.”
The possibilities which drones could achieve have just begun to be explored. In the future, Key foresees them providing temporary internet access where there’s a disruption to the network, broadcasting a connection at large events, and helping other customers tackle logistical, agricultural and energy challenges with their drone deployments.
As with many new technologies – drones face strict regulation. In the UK, current rules insist that a drone remains in clear sight of its operator. With the increased threat of terrorism we’re currently facing, it could be some time before these rules are relaxed and we allow drones to reach their full potential.
Do you think regulatory bodies need to change their rules on drones? Let us know in the comments.
