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Automated drones navigate and inspect cell towers without GPS

ZDNet

On August 29, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)'s Part 107 commercial drone rules go into effect, and although they are quite restrictive, some companies have already found creative ways to work within the limitations. One commercial application that has already started to take off is drone inspections for large structures such as cell towers, buildings, and bridges. PRENAV, a Silicon Valley startup, has developed an automated drone that uses an alternative navigation system to precisely fly drones close enough to towers to see any structural issues that need to be repaired. Manual inspections are inefficient and unsafe; it just doesn't make sense to send humans to climb large structures when robots can do it better, without risking any lives. According to OSHA, tower climbing is the most dangerous job in America, and demand for tower maintenance is growing as consumers increasingly rely on broadband and wireless communications.