Site360 photo taken by a drone, note red calibrations on inset
So what can a drone do that a harnessed tower tech can’t? Chad Tuttle, President and CEO of B+T Group has a simple answer: “They can make mapping a mount more efficient,” he said.
B+T Group is pioneering drone usage at over 200 tower sites, by allowing the aerials to gather specs on the entire compound, while sending the reports in real time to an office for processing. Rolled out only three months ago, B+T’s Site360, according to Tuttle, revolutionizes asset management and structural analysis by eliminating the most time-consuming and dangerous part of the process, the climb. Climbers not only have to deal with all weather conditions and stressful situations, they have to write up the reports afterward, if not on site at the end of the day, then in hotel rooms and in states of exhaustion. With B+T’s brand of drone coverage, the report is underway by an office-based technician while the climber is storing his/her gear in the truck.
Since accuracy counts and, in fact, is almost everything in structural analysis, can a drone deliver the goods? B+T reassures customers that Site360’s photography is accurate down to the centimeter, including customized “Points Of Interest” that contain measurable data. Once the data is stored, a customer can go back and ‘walk the site’ without leaving their office, including data on tower antennas, technical drawings, azimuths and layouts.
Has the new technology been put to a practical use yet?
Tuttle cited Tony Peduto, CEO of CTI Towers, as one of B+T’s earliest Site360 adopters, having over 200 of his sites scanned. He recently used that data to go back and perform a mount mapping on one of his towers.
Tuttle also said Crown Castle needed site plans for its UK towers. Because of the unknown conditions of many of those sites, Crown hoped that B+T Group would be able to use this new technology to provide a site plan, even with limited or no access to the sites. CCI wanted the information gathered and provided for the 134 sites very quickly, so B+T Group sent two, two-man crews to the UK to complete the job.
So does this replace climbers? While the answer might seem to be an obvious ‘yes,’ Tuttle sees it as “one more tool in their tool box, one less report to write up at the end of a long day.” Mastering drone skills can not only be a good career booster for the able-bodied climber, according to Tuttle, but a way for older, battle-scarred veterans of the tower industry to stay in the game.
By Jim Fryer, Inside Towers Managing Editor
February 27, 2018
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