A part of the HDE piloting site in Italy, which was inspected by the EU Sunrise project. Image: Sunrise project
The Sunrise project is testing a combination of satellite images, drones and machine learning methods to detect anomalies in critical infrastructure.
An EU-funded project is looking at remote tools such as drones to protect critical infrastructure, by ensuring it can be monitored and fixed without the need for physical human intervention.
The Sunrise project was started in 2022 to ensure greater availability, reliability and continuity of critical infrastructures, in the face of major risks like global pandemics. A total of 41 organisations have joined this project and are working on various ways to protect critical infrastructure.
One of the tools that has recently been piloted is the Sunrise Tool for Remote Physical Infrastructure Inspection, which uses a combination of satellite images, unmanned aerial vehicles and machine learning methods to detect anomalies in critical infrastructure.
The goal of this pilot project is to detect any issues in critical infrastructure and fix them without the physical presence of workers, to improve safety for the people involved. The project has been trialled in Spain, Slovenia and Italy, with researchers working with transport, water and electricity operators over the past two months.
Sunrise project coordinator Aljosa Pasic said the trials have been conducted to show the benefits the project’s tools can provide, such as “saving cost or optimising valuable resources”.
“Piloting the suite of Sunrise tools in real-world scenarios is a crucial milestone in the project,” Pasic said. “Getting the opportunity to work with critical infrastructure operators across Europe and taking their feedback and inputs on board is extremely valuable as we continue to develop each technological element – in this case the remote infrastructure inspection tool.
“We hope that we can take learnings from this round of piloting work into the further development of the remote infrastructure inspection tool.”
A number of drone projects are taking place in Ireland to boost existing services. For example, drone technology being developed at Tyndall National Institute in University College Cork could be deployed for maritime surveillance along the coast of Ireland.
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