Project goal

The goal of the project is to build a drone control center, to acquire and establish a broad base of fundamental knowledge for the operation of a drone control center, and to train elected employees of the LSBG accordingly. The resulting, finished control center will successively be able to collect and process data from structures, construction sites and the general condition of Hamburg's infrastructure. The drone control center will be available to all LSBG and BVM employees as a first point of contact for the use of drones, in the spirit of mission planning, mission control and mission finish. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Number of project partners 1

The drone control center, the Bee eye Control project - B(e)Control for short - is the central hub for drone mission planning, mission control and mission finish at the State Roads, Bridges and Waterways Administration (LSBG). With specialized technology and broad knowledge, structured as well as efficient processes of drone missions are made possible for the LSBG's engineering collegues and beyond, and finally, high-quality data is provided. The engineering colleges are enabled to use the drone as a tool and to carry out demanding tasks. Thus, the drone control center represents an important component in the development of the workplace of the future.

A key aspect of integrating a centralized drone control center is to consolidate expertise within the LSBG and reduce the burden on the business units and ultimately the engineering colleges. This includes meeting legal and internal requirements as well as harmonizing and providing sensor data. Based on a large number of different use cases, the drone flights are commissioned by the colleagues from the business units themselves and transmitted to the central drone control center. As soon as the order has been received by the control center, the flight planning (mission planning) is carried out. This includes all the necessary approval processes for the drone flight as well as the route planning for the flight. In addition, the orders received are evaluated to determine the extent to which they can be fulfilled by an aerial survey. Flight monitoring (mission control) is performed by the safety systems of the drone control center software as well as the drone pilots. In the course of the mission finish, the collected sensor data of the drone flight are processed and analyzed by AI methods. These data sets are then transferred to the specialist departments and can thus be used in a wide variety of specialist applications.

The use of drones makes the planning, maintenance and expansion of infrastructure (especially hard-to-reach infrastructure areas) less complicated and more efficient:

• Inspections of structures, buildings and facilities using AI-assisted image analysis - without attaching scaffolding or lifting platforms.
• Dike monitoring and surveying over long distances using geodetic surveying and high-resolution aerial imagery - without having to drive or walk over them.
• Process monitoring and control of structures and/or roads under construction - without much time or risk.

In addition, blockage and downtime of structures and the reduction of deployment times and risks of inspection personnel at the structure are significantly reduced. Another advantage is that the entire digital process chain from data acquisition and preparation, data evaluation and fully digital semantic storage to condition assessment and visualization of all structure and condition data is mapped over the life cycle. Thus, the contextual storage of all data generated in the process forms the interface to BIM. The drone control station using drone technology enables three-dimensional recording of the technical infrastructure and represents the necessary prerequisite for 3D models within a digital twin.