On the heels of its groundbreaking success with BNSF Railway in the achievement of truly automated long-range UAS supplemental track inspections, Bihrle Applied Research (Bihrle) announced that it is spinning-off its computer vision and machine learning capabilities in a new venture called Ardenna.

Ardenna’s drones enable intelligent automation of infrastructure inspections to provide insightful and actionable data more quickly and accurately than human reviewers. Examples shown include anomaly detection for rail, wind turbine, powerline. and pipeline. (Image: PRNewsfoto | Ardenna)
Ardenna will offer solutions for the automated detection, classification, and reporting of anomalies found during the inspection of critical infrastructure, including inspections of wind turbines, power lines, and other key assets.
“Operations and maintenance organizations have begun looking to drones as a new tool for monitoring the health of their asset,” ssaid David Patterson, Business Lead for Ardenna. “Ardenna solves the problem of having more images than humans can review by automating the detection, classification and reporting of anomalies, therefore providing the critical information needed by O&M organizations in near-real time.”
Patterson added: “The compelling need for this capability was clearly demonstrated in BNSF’s rail inspection application, so we are excited to bring this technology to other drone inspection use cases.”
Bihrle will continue to offer its core aeronautical research and development capabilities in the areas of wind tunnel testing, flight dynamics, and simulation to the domestic and international aerospace markets. Bihrle will also continue to offer UAS engineering services in the areas of aircraft flight dynamics, sense-and-avoid technologies, BVLOS and regulatory consulting as well as software products for UAS flight planning and simulation.
Filed Under: Drones, News, O&M