The drone tech is bought in. Their strength is in AI based analytics. That is developed in house. When they did the TNB power line inspections, they can turn around few hundred towers worth of inspection data within 24h. We competed against them for many inspection tenders and their guarantee of that turn around time was key to them winning almost every bid.

RGB images and thermal images. Have to inspect the electrical pylon for missing or damaged components from rust, lightning strikes, bird poop, strong winds and people stealing stuff. TNBs expectation was that the entire network could be inspected twice a year. So need speed. But also detailed till have thermographers and engineers report. So if no automation to sort and do preliminary inspection definitely cannot do in time.

That was in 2016. But now that AI is more popular and more tools are available and also more mature ady, the competition is catching up.