Aug 9 2016
Total Safety U.S. Inc., the world’s premier provider of industrial inspection and integrated safety solutions, today announced the further expansion of its commercial unmanned aerial systems (UAS) solutions and an exclusive alliance and collaboration agreement with Era Group Inc., a leading helicopter transport operator.
Total Safety was one of the original 24 companies approved by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to use UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) for commercial purposes in February 2015. The company initially employed UAVs to inspect flare stacks, which typically burn in excess of 2000°F and would have otherwise required an interruption of operations or manned aircraft to enable inspection. Since that time Total Safety has expanded its UAS solutions to include additional sensory technology that allows for an expanded variety of inspections and site surveys.
A Critical and Cost-Saving Addition to Inspection, Compliance and Repair
By leveraging the world-class aviation, multiple aerial platforms, and sensory technologies offered by Era, Total Safety will now be able to safely and economically add expanded flight operations, technology, and data processing capabilities to our already robust UAS based solutions at – chemical plants, refineries, pipelines, tank batteries, drilling and production sites (whether onshore or offshore), midstream facilities and to other industrial and manufacturing environments. In addition, the new alliance will allow for UAVs to be deployed for post incident response and disaster recovery efforts.
“UAVs provide one of the most important technological breakthroughs we have seen in compliance and safety,” said Total Safety Senior Vice President of Business Development Darrell Whitley, “because remote aerial systems allow us to get close to potentially dangerous environments without endangering people and they allow us to do it less expensively than ever before.
“Plus, UAVs can dramatically enhance the data obtained from traditional inspections, surveys, mapping and imagery efforts for compliance,” he added.
Use of UAS can reduce liability, increase safety, reduce manpower, improve analysis of mechanical and structural integrity, provide georeferenced and time-stamped records for regulatory compliance, and facilitate timely – variance and anomaly analysis.
Expert Teams, Expert Collection, Top Quality Data
Based on the client’s and FAA requirements, Total Safety and Era will assign a two to three-person flight team to each project consisting of experts in aviation, safety and inspection. A customized platform is designed around sensor and software packages for optimized collection of HD still imagery, HD video, thermal imaging, forward looking infrared (FLIR) for leak detection and repair, light detection and ranging (LIDAR), 3D mapping, geo-referenced or point-cloud modeling, and seamless transfer to CAD-enabled tools.