Eric Telles is an engineer with the Public Safety Communications and he’s looking up, way up, at the tower he needs to inspect. At 200 feet tall it is a typical tower used by state agencies for communications. Not long ago Eric and a partner would have to climb this tower but today he is using a drone.
“We use the drones to do surveys of the towers where we have radio equipment … Antennas on the tower. We use it to survey that equipment to make sure it’s engineered, installed properly.”
Telles prefers using drones for inspections because they’re safer and more efficient. That because only technicians who are tower-certified can climb a tower and they work in teams so you may have to wait until a team is available, but a single engineer with a drone can deploy at any time and you don’t have to worry about anyone falling.
The drones can also help with planning as some of the dishes use technology that relies on a clear line of sight, or path, from one tower to the next. A drone can fly into position to see if there are any obstacles.
“We have ones for doing 3d mapping capabilities of mapping towers. We also have ones for viewing with a telephoto lens for viewing paths. So we have different camera lenses depending on the application. Buildings get constructed, obstructions, trees grow. Eventually you lose line of sight if those things are going to inhibit your path. So a lot of times we’ll look at these things and say this has the potential to be impacted.”
Eric Telles and the other engineer pilots are licensed by the Federal Aviation Administration. Every pilot must complete a weeklong drone training program followed by FAA testing. Then there is additional safety training with the Cal OES Public Safety Communications Office.
The Cal OES Public Safety Communications Office has a fleet of six drones and ten licensed pilots.