C&K Industrial Services used the Elios 3 to survey a sewer pipeline that was damaged due to old age and needed to be relined. Find out how the drone’s LiDAR delivered the engineering-grade results.
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Safety Using the Elios 3 kept the team out of a high-risk environment, including poor air quality and confined space spread over thousands of feet/hundreds of meters. |
Access Crawlers are limited by pipe diameter, struggling with pipes over 72 inches (180 cm). C&K Industrial Services’ Elios 3 can handle pipe inspections and surveys with a diameter of 27 feet (8.2 meters). |
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Efficiency Using the Elios 3 reduces disruption to traffic, calls for fewer safety precautions due to no confined entry, and in general reduces staffing for an inspection by 80%. |
Data Quality With the Surveying payload, C&K Industrial Services needed just 2 people and 1 day to gather engineering-grade data over 1,500 feet/450 meters. |
Hydrogen sulfide, H2S, is a colorless and flammable gas that would be missed if it weren’t for its pungent odor of rotten eggs. A naturally occurring gas, it can be found in high quantities in sewers and wastewater infrastructure. This poses a challenge for sewer management, as over time, this toxic and corrosive gas corrodes and damages pipelines and tunnels even in low doses. It can eventually lead to total collapse. To prevent this, sewers must be inspected, maintained, and from time to time, relined.
Sewer inspections call for stringent safety standards. Accessing underground tunnels, vaults, and access structures typically requires confined entry by manned teams or a combination of remote access tools. Manned entry calls for specialized, powerful equipment and high-energy systems, which must be operated by highly trained professionals who have PPE and adhere to strict procedures to prevent injuries and safely gather data.
The data collected for these inspections is usually presented in an industry-recognized and accepted format, such as NASSCO in the USA. In a recent project at Niagara Falls, contractor C&K Industrial Services completed a NASSCO-compliant inspection using the Elios 3 in a challenging sewer mission. The hydrogen sulfide levels were low but human entry was still not recommended.
C&K Industrial Services is an industrial, environmental, and infrastructure contractor that works across industries on complex construction and maintenance projects. Backed by 100 years of experience, they use their expertise in projects related to sewers and wastewater networks to provide analytical evaluations of pipeline volume, deformations, and voice detection alongside cross-sectional profiling. At the end of their projects, they deliver engineering-grade data to their clients, empowering the next phase of development.
The major obstacle that C&K Industrial Services faces in its work is safety, and for sewer work, this is specific to confined spaces or traffic-related hazards. Their teams use job safety analysis (JSA) and oversight by a dedicated safety and operations management department to ensure the safety of work on each project.
They have added the Elios 3 to their toolkit to improve safety standards and gather data that’s otherwise impossible to reach. They have found it to be the perfect solution for safely and efficiently performing remote inspections in large diameter assets.
The Elios 3, ready for action with the C&K Industrial Services Team
At a site near Niagara Falls, AECOM has been working with the Niagara Falls Water Board to assess the condition of the underground wastewater infrastructure. At one site, their objective was to perform comprehensive visual and digital inspections of a 48-inch (1.2-meter) diameter sanitary sewer. They suspected it had suffered significant structural deterioration due to corrosion. The pipe was 1,500 feet long (457 meters).
This is a high-risk environment due to the poor air quality and work in confined spaces. The unknown structural condition of the tunnel also made manned entry unsafe and nearly impossible. C&K Industrial Services was asked to deliver high-resolution visual footage, including distance markers for NASSCO compliance, as well as 3D LiDAR data to assist in planning relining for the sewer (also known as slip-lining rehabilitation). The LiDAR data is critical to determining the maximum feasible liner diameter for repair, which would inform the replacement design and restore an optimized flow.
C&K Industrial selected the Elios 3 for this mission as they knew it could deliver the results they needed while ensuring the safety of their team. Using the drone eliminated the need for confined space entry, while its 4K camera and onboard lighting provide unmatched visibility and clarity of results. In addition, they know that the Elios 3’s 16,000 lumen lighting rig can illuminate tunnels as large as 27 feet in diameter (8.2 meters).
The Elios 3 offers C&K Industrial Services unrestricted access to damaged and hazardous conditions that cannot be reached with other methods. A crawler-based system would require a stable pipe and pre-cleaned conditions for safe use. In this instance, the structural condition of the tunnel would not support such a method of inspection and access. Meanwhile, the Elios 3 can fly inside and navigate freely even if the pipeline is collapsed, offset, or partially obstructed.
C&K Industrial Services knew that cleaning (jetting and vacuuming out debris) was not an option, so they would only use the Elios 3 as they couldn’t prepare the pipe for a CCTV crawler. Severe deterioration on the invert and fragile overall conditions made it very difficult to inspect with any traditional methods, such as a crawler or manned entry.
The inspection team divided the sewer pipe into sections of around 330 feet (100 meters) to fly the Elios 3. Entry and exit of the pipe were achieved through subsequent manholes, the data from which would be tied with terrestrial laser scans to align a final point cloud. This method is optimal for accurate georeferencing and would enable the team to gather LiDAR data with enough detail for AECOM’s required deliverables. The Elios 3 was flown close to the pipe’s invert to avoid contact with the damaged pipe surfaces while maintaining full visual coverage of the interior.
The final section of the pipe, measuring 415 feet (126 meters), had no downstream access - making it a dead-end. The experienced C&K pilot still managed to fly the Elios 3 down the pipe to gather enough data and get the drone back on a single, standard battery charge. They then used the Elios 3’s LiDAR data in combination with a topographic surface scan to locate a buried manhole from this section and confirm the position of the downstream asset.
Overall, the data collection with the Elios 3 was all completed in a single day. On average, C&K Industrial has found that working with the Elios 3 can improve their operational efficiency by as much as 80%, considering the reduced team size, speed of access and results, and simplified safety protocols.
The Elios 3 captures both a LiDAR scan of the tunnel (left) and 4K video with specialized lighting to illuminate the inaccessible
For a NASSCO-compliant report, inspectors must be able to show the visual data and its location in the pipe in relation to the pipe entry. For example, this would mean showing a photo of a crack and confirming its location 5 meters (15 feet) inside a pipe.
To achieve this, the C&K Industrial Services team uploaded their Elios 3 data to Flyability’s specialized software, Inspector. There, they did a preliminary review and confirmed that they had complete data coverage.
The video and synchronized distance data were then exported into Pioneer, a NASSCO-compliant inspection software that divides the pipeline segments and codes the defects according to PACP standards. The team used this to generate NASSCO reports.
The LiDAR data was exported as .las point cloud files into FARO Connect, the partner software for the Elios 3’s LiDAR surveying payload. FARO Connect was used to visualize the full 3D geometry of each pipeline segment, and the data was also processed via Leica’s point cloud software to create a high-resolution 3D model and report.
As a final result, C&K generated detailed, 3-foot (1-meter) increments of the pipeline. These segments would allow engineers to clearly visualize areas of deterioration and gather precise dimensional measurements throughout the sewer system. This would, in turn, be used to plan the relining rehabilitation.
C&K Industrial completed this project, delivering the visual and LiDAR data that AECOM had requested. Through the Elios 3, the team was able to eliminate confined space entry and overcome both access and structural limitations. Their high-quality data is detailed enough to inform engineering decisions and match NASSCO standards. Using the drone helped reduce the time taken for data collection and minimized disruption to traffic and movement in the vicinity of the sewer.
In general, C&K Industrial Services has found that integrating drone-based solutions like the Elios 3 alongside powerful software (in this case, Inspector, Pioneer by SewerAI, FARO Connect, and Leica), has empowered them to deliver inspection data of a higher quality while improving safety and lowering the overall inspection costs. It sets them apart from traditional crawler-based competitors and gives them access to assets that just aren’t reachable with any other technology.
Interested in the Elios 3 for wastewater surveys? Discover more!