Drone inspects Airbus aircraft before departure

While some are discussing whether the drones are dangerous for aircraft, others are adapting the "small aircraft" to the service of the large. Airbus presented a pilot project - a preflight external inspection of aircraft using a drone. The flying device was created by Ascending Technologies , a company specializing in industrial and research UAVs and acquired by Intel at the beginning of the year. It is equipped with an Intel RealSense camera that allows the drone to move independently next to the body of the aircraft, while the operator performs visual control from his console.

According to a company representative, automation has allowed to drastically reduce the inspection time, from two hours to 10-15 minutes. In addition, the working conditions of the inspectors have become more comfortable, which means that the quality of their work has improved. To begin with, the drone was entrusted with an inspection of the Airbus A350 aircraft, next year the A330 will be added to the list, and then all of the company's aircraft. Below is a video telling about the project.