NTT Communications (NTT Com) and Daiwa House are collaborating on unmanned inspection management at multi-tenant logistics facilities (DPL) developed by Daiwa House. As part of this effort, on March 18th and 19th, a demonstration experiment of unmanned inspection management using drones and AI was conducted at DPL Kimiyashiro in Saitama Prefecture.
Ichiro Ishikawa, General Manager of the Logistics DX Promotion Group at Daiwa House Industry’s Tokyo Headquarters, said, “At DPL, staff walk around and check shutters, guard poles, fire extinguishing equipment, etc. as daily inspection work.On the other hand, the facility is about 100,000 square meters. There are many things, and it takes about 10,000 steps to inspect one floor. We thought that by using drones, we could perform inspections more efficiently and at a higher level, which led us to this initiative”.
In the demonstration experiment, a drone flew within the DPL. A video of the inspection area is taken and sent via Wi-Fi to NTT Com’s SDPF (Smart Data Platform).
Drones fly automatically indoors. GPS can be used outdoors, but it is difficult to use indoors. For this reason, six fisheye lenses installed on the drone are used to achieve flight without relying on GPS. Starting in fiscal 2024, AI will be used to analyze data taken by drones to detect equipment abnormalities and provide real-time notifications of the details.
“After that, we would like to be able to use images captured by drones to centrally manage DPLs in various locations from a remote location,” says Ishikawa.
The demonstration experiment utilized NTT Com’s “SDPF for City” as a full service. This is a platform that seamlessly handles and uses data on people and things scattered inside and outside of cities and facilities to create comfortable urban and facility environments.
NTT Com also uses Skydio Dock and Remote Ops, a solution that enables remote control and automatic patrolling of drones.
Drones can be operated from anywhere as long as there is an internet connection. The images sent from the drone are also sent via the cloud, so they can be viewed remotely on a computer.
Yukinori Murakawa, Chief Manager of the Second Business Solution Sales Department at NTT Com’s Kansai Branch, said, “In actual operation, we set the route for the drone to fly automatically in advance, then take pictures of the facility, and there were errors in the data difference from the previous flight.We will determine whether or not”.