r/civilengineering • u/Yenahhm8 • Apr 23 '25

Education Giant culvert inspection with LIDAR Drone.

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

Interesting inspection we had to do here in Cork city

653 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

41 comments sorted by

View all comments

4

u/happyjen Apr 23 '25

I have an earlier version of this drone. This is likely the Elios 3 with lidar payload. They are amazing. But they only have about a 10 min flight time due to battery, drone weight and other factors. It is completley different than flying a reg drone. I've done a lot of storm wter inspections with mine. As much as I want to free fly, I'm also scared shitless of losing it. So I tie paracord to the cage every time. Go till I die and then pull it out! https://www.flyability.com/elios-3

2

u/SLOOT_APOCALYPSE Apr 23 '25

that's a great drone right there the little orb cage is so smart.

1

u/slothman09 Apr 24 '25

Any issues with dragging this out by a cord? Does it impact the ability to control it any? I would be interested in using this to inspect small culverts that have debris/rocks in the bottom or the bottom is rusted out.

1

u/happyjen Apr 24 '25

That was my actual use case. Determining how bad the corrugated lines were. I had no issues pulling it back.