Autonomous close-inspection for resilient power networks
Electricity grid owners and operators face growing pressure to maintain ageing assets as demand, network complexity and regulatory expectations increase.
Helicopters remain essential for wide-area situational awareness and emergency response, and ground teams are critical for maintenance and fault repair. However, neither approach delivers repeatable, component-level inspection across networks. While drones can provide this level of detail, conventional drone deployment has proven difficult to scale safely and consistently at national level.
sees.ai provides centrally controlled, Level-4 autonomous close-quarter inspection of transmission and distribution assets - including spans and towers. The system is designed to support inspection programmes across large networks, capturing secure, repeatable condition data that complements existing inspection programmes and supports long-term asset management.
Scalable close inspection supporting long-term electricity grid asset planning
Autonomous close-quarter inspection and data capture on network assets
Central control room enabling multiple concurrent inspection operations
Component-level engineering-grade data capture on assets
Structured and repeatable datasets optimised for AI/ML processing
Longitudinal insights supporting condition monitoring and maintenance planning
Inspections are enabled by a centrally controlled autonomous system designed for operation on high-voltage networks
Unlike conventional drone approaches that rely on pre-mapped environments or prior site surveys, the system operates in real time, adapting to asset geometry, surrounding structures and changing conditions such as vegetation encroachment. This enables close-quarter inspection without separate pre-flight surveys.
Operations are conducted Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS), allowing long sections of the network to be inspected from a limited number of launch locations. This reduces land access requirements and supports inspection programmes across transmission and distribution networks.
The capability is delivered as one integrated inspection system, with safety and security oversight across aircraft, operations and data capture. Outputs are structured and platform-agnostic, enabling integration into existing processing, analytics and visualisation environments.
Designed for long-term programmes, the system integrates with existing operational, regulatory and asset management frameworks.
How autonomous close-inspection supports National Grid operations
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