Percepto

Automating inspections utilizing drone technology

Power plants need to ensure high availability levels whilst maintaining operational safety. Often this was achieved through manual walk-throughs but this can be time consuming with no guarantee that all issues would be spotted. 

The Siemens Energy team in Israel, who are responsible for a power plant based on natural gas producing 73 megawatts of power, set out to find a different solution. Liaising with the Venture Clienting (VCL) team that is part of Siemens Energy Ventures (SEV), they were able to secure help to identify a startup solution to solve the challenge.

In this case, Percepto was identified as the best option. An Israeli startup which manufactures and deploys industry-grade drones. This enabled an improved inspection and monitoring of power plants. In particular, it offered:

Automated fault detection

Regular inspections are undertaken which collect high-quality visual data allowing faults and issues to be spotted early. 

Mission reports

After all missions are completed, a report is produced with actionable insights. Data is automatically uploaded after each drone flight which is analyzed using highly sophisticated AI and deep-learning algorithms.

On-site autonomous drones

The drone are housed on-site in a specific box enabling unmanned, frequent plant inspections. There is an added safety benefit in that inspections can be done from a remote location at the most convenient time, protecting the well-being of employees.

Shutdown monitoring

We can leverage autonomous inspection & monitoring technology to monitor activities on site during shutdowns.

The VCL team assisted in the development of the business case and supported the demonstration, pilot and adoption phase to bring the startup solution into the business.

Effectively we’re operating as a customer of the startup.
Ori Shpigel, Head of Innovation, SE Israel and part of the VCL team

As a result, the team is Israel were able to locate or trace the faults in a very quick way from the data and insights. As Avishay Malul, Siemens Energy, Power Plant Manager says “Before, it would take us a long time to understand that we have those problems on our site. With this new solution, we are saving time and increasing employee safety.”

 

Having proven successful in Israel and demonstrated its ability to minimize downtime, improve productivity and increase safety, the technology is now being scaled up globally within Siemens Energy.

Siemens Energy Ventures