Like several other companies, Flyability is supported by Leonard as part of its CATALYST program, which helps mature start-ups to optimise their projects onsite by deploying them on VINCI group worksites.
How can the most difficult-to-access areas on infrastructure sites be inspected safely? Could the answer be a small machine just 48 cm wide and 38 cm high? That’s the challenge set by the Swiss start-up Flyability with Elios 3, its latest generation indoor drone. Encased in an anti-shock cage, the robot is designed to fly in tunnels, shafts, cavities – in short, all the spaces that are most difficult for humans to access.
Watch the video « Catalyst on the field : Flyability »
A safety aid like no other, it has been tested over the last few months on the Avrieux shafts site, the central section of the Euralpin Lyon Turin Tunnel (TELT), the future 57 km rail link between France and Italy, expected to open in 2030. ‘Our project involves the construction of four shafts more than 500 metres deep and 5 metres in diameter, separated by less than 8 metres, which will have the triple function of ventilating the tunnel, controlling the piston effect of the trains and securing the entire infrastructure. Recently, at a depth of around 350 metres, we came across an area of geological instability causing rockfalls and landslides. It was impossible to send in staff. Using a drone was the only solution,’ explains André Gourdon, senior site supervisor at Dodin Campenon Bernard, the VINCI Construction subsidiary in charge of the project.
Since then, every couple of weeks, the site geologist has sent Elios 3 on an inspection mission to the depths of the shafts. Collision-resistant and tolerant of water and dust, Flyability’s drone is equipped with a stabilisation algorithm, a high-resolution camera and an oblique lighting system enabling it to detect and visualise traces of corrosion, cracks or geological faults, even in complete darkness. ‘Not only does the robot considerably reduce the risk of accidents to personnel, it also helps us reduce labour costs and downtime. We can also identify and therefore prevent environmental risks associated with the inspection of critical infrastructures’, explains André Gourdon.
Another innovation offered by Elios 3 is an integrated LiDAR (LIght Detection And Ranging) sensor that constantly scans the environment to create a high-density 3D point cloud map, displayed in real time on the pilot’s control screen. ‘Thanks to this function, we can model all cavity areas in real time. Some of them up to 14 m in diameter. Thanks to this function, we can monitor the evolution of the geological soil and follow reinforcement work with extreme reliability’, emphasises André Gourdon.
The drone could rapidly become an invaluable tool for site teams working in sensitive areas, as well as for a number of industrial sites with existing infrastructure such as extraction shafts, ore stacks and ventilation systems, as part of mapping operations for new civil engineering works, for instance.
