Second award win for ports and highways drones project

Partners on the InDePTH drones project including Connected Places Catapult are celebrating a second award win in the space of a year.

The consortium behind the ‘Intelligent Drones for Port and Highways Technology’ initiative – which is led by BT and includes Associated British Ports (ABP), Kier Transportation, RoboK and HeroTech8 – won the Innovation category at The National AI Awards 2024 in Ipswich on 12 September.

Award judges praised the entry’s “exceptional creativity and ingenuity” to help redefine what AI can achieve; “inspiring the next wave of technological advancements”. They added: “Winning this award is a reflection of your trailblazing spirit and your ability to continually push the boundaries of innovation.

This latest award win follows the team’s triumph at the 2023 Robotics and Automation Awards in London last October, where it won an award for Best Research & Development Innovation.

InDePTH has looked to develop and trial an innovative approach to the monitoring and control of critical national infrastructure. The consortium has focused on using automated drone technology and advanced AI techniques to create an efficient, low-carbon and cost-effective solution for infrastructure management.

The project has trialled flights using automated ‘drone-in-a-box’ technology to survey large infrastructure estates. Imagery collected from the drone missions have been used to create digital models, and state-of-the-art machine learning has extracted insight from the collected imagery.

Project trials have been centred around three real-world use cases for ports and highways developed by ABP and Kier, including landside port operations and management, marine operations and highway safety and defect inspections.

InDePTH forms part of the Future Flight Challenge Phase 3 programme, delivered by Innovate UK and funded by UK Research and Innovation which aims to help develop the country’s future drone economy.

Flights have been taking place at the Port of Ipswich, owned and operated by ABP, to show how drones could help improve asset and inventory management.

InDePTH has also been deploying drones to continuously assess the surface quality of roads within the port on behalf of Kier, to help spot defects early, which – if used on highways – could improve safety and wellbeing for roadworkers.

The project completes at the end of September. Find out more about the consortium partners and their role in the project on our project page and in our project video.

“I’m delighted that Project InDePTH has been recognised for its great work at The National AI Awards. InDePTH is a technically complex project which promises to revolutionise the autonomous drones service industry, by bringing artificial intelligence to a wide variety of customers and industry sectors.”

Andrew Chadwick, Ecosystem Director for Air Mobility & Airports, Connected Places Catapult

“It is fantastic that the project has won this latest award which recognises the potential of InDePTH to transform the way operations are conducted using autonomous drones, for the benefit of critical national infrastructure.”

Alistair Duke, Research Manager – Networks, BT Group on behalf of the InDePTH consortium

Sign up for a showcase event this Wednesday to hear about achievements on the InDePTH project.