Newsletter for the Rotary Club of Western Endeavour - Issue No.: 1129 Issue Date: 21 Jul, 2024

Edward Boxall, CEO of Sensorem gave an insight into the advances in drone and remote sensing technologies at the club meeting on 31 January 2023. 

Sensorem, is an Aerodyne company operated from Perth in Western Australia. While drones and associated technologies are used for collecting data in an increasing number of areas from agriculture to search and rescue, this presentation focused on asset inspection especially in areas that are dull, dirty, and/or dangerous. Sensorem specialises in conducting remote inspections and with advanced processing, delivering comprehensive interactive 3D and 4D reports. The first example we saw was using a drone with thermal imaging to detect possible hidden defects in a long conveyer belt in the Pilbara without having to shut it down. An example of the type of drone used for this was demonstrated.

We were then shown how Sensorem are using drones with high resolution cameras and advanced LiDAR equipment to create “digital twin” replicas of all of the Telstra communication sites in Australia. Not only does this allow engineers and other company staff to inspect their assets from the comfort and safety of their office or home, the data can also be live streamed. We saw a video of how this was done with a facility in Esperance. We were then shown in real time how a 3D model of our meeting room is made using LiDAR information.

Drone Mapping... Edward Boxall, CEO of Sensorem talked to our club about his company's work with drone sensing technology. This video demonstrates one of his projects which was the drone surveillance of a Telstra Tower in Esperence, WA. Download then view (28 mins at 60kb/s).. 97 Mb

In closing, we were then shown the use of Autonomous drones with the unique software called Hovermap which was designed in Australia by the CSIRO. This was demonstrated by how this equipment was used by Sensorem to accurately map a disused underground gold mine in complete darkness which needed to be dewatered prior to manual inspection with a view to reopening it. Omnidirectional collision avoidance ability allowed the autonomous drone to capture all the required data without anyone going into the flooded mine. See photo below.