Companies across many different industries are starting to use drones for industrial inspections. Drones slash costs, time, and provide higher quality inspections while being a safer alternative. Add all those benefits to the fact that you can attach nearly any sensor you want to a drone, and it’s no wonder they are used for inspections so often.

We talk a lot about all of these services drones provide, but not much about which large companies or government agencies are utilizing drone technology. Here are some big name organizations that are using drones for inspecting their infrastructure.

The Royal Navy

First on our list is the U.K.’s Royal Navy. They are using drones to inspect their ships, which means they can perform the inspections anywhere, even at sea. This cuts down on time and makes the inspections much easier to perform.

The drones used for this must be heavy duty because experiencing winds of 60 km/h on the oceans is fairly normal. It’s great to see that government agencies are starting to use drone technology, as well as the private sector.

Consumers Energy

Consumers Energy is a U.S. based energy company that provides electricity and natural gas to over 6 million people in the U.S. That means they own a lot of power lines, which all need routine inspections.

As you probably guessed, that’s where drones come in. Before, they were using helicopters to complete these inspections. Helicopters are much more expensive, louder, and not nearly as effective as drones. For all of those reasons, Consumer Energy and many other energy companies are starting to use drones more often for their industrial inspections.

BP

One of the largest oil and gas companies in the world, BP was the first oil company to be approved to use drones back in 2014. Since then, most companies in the oil industry have started to use them more because they are much better than the alternative of either people or helicopters.

BP uses drones for a variety of things in their oil fields. Flare stacks, pipelines, and other infrastructure are all things drones are used to inspect. The oil and gas industry is one that has adapted drone technology the most, and BP is the company leading the way.

Allstate

The massive U.S. home and auto insurance company is also using drones. They are using drones for inspecting hard to reach places, like damaged and collapsed roofs.

Drones are helping them speed up the process when an insurance claim is filed because they are able to inspect the damage much quicker with drones. Being able to access hard-to-reach places with ease is a great benefit of using drones, and Allstate is definitely capitalizing on this fact.

SolarCity

The U.S. based solar panel installer and manufacturer, which recently merged with Tesla, is using drones for inspecting their solar panels. This is a technology we have talked about before and many solar energy companies are using drones.

The main reason behind this is drones can detect damages that people aren’t able to see. Strapping sensors like thermal imaging to it means they can detect inconsistencies in energy and heat production. They can spot small damages that normally would go unnoticed and repairing them quickly means they are able to keep their panels running at max efficiency.

You can see that drones are being used for inspections by some of the largest companies across many different industries: insurance, oil, solar, energy, and even the military. It’s all very exciting, and you will probably start to see it used in about every industry that requires some form of inspections.