Overhead lines move. Conductors sag, sway and stretch with load and temperature; vegetation grows; ground shifts. Drone LiDAR captures one geometry honestly — and a catenary model extrapolates it to every operating condition the network has to clear. Span-level compliance becomes an output, not an audit cycle.
The captured cloud gives you the conductor at flight time — one snapshot. Catenary physics extrapolates that snapshot to the still / normal / hot-load operating envelope. Toggle modes to see ground-clearance compliance and vegetation breaches surface from the same dataset.
Operating envelope. The captured conductor extrapolated to still / normal / hot load conditions using catenary physics. The envelope is what the network actually has to clear — not just the still-air snapshot.
Conductors aren't static. A clearance check that's compliant in cold-still conditions can fail at peak load on a hot day — and most network compliance regimes still rely on one-snapshot assessments updated case by case.
Manned helicopter LiDAR is the legacy gold standard for transmission. At distribution-network economics it doesn't pay back — so refresh cycles stretch and field intelligence ages.
Annual patrol cycles miss the cool-season conductor uplift / warm-season vegetation surge dynamic. Compliance status drifts between patrols, often without anyone knowing.
Measuring clearance at the lowest point of a single span tells you the worst case for that span on that day. The actual worst case is at maximum sag — and you can't measure it without modelling it.
Vegetation work driven by complaints, fires or compliance audits costs multiples of the same work scheduled against a current dataset. Without span-level clearance maps, prioritisation is best-effort.
A drone LiDAR pass captures conductor, structure, vegetation and ground in one flight. Catenary modelling extrapolates the captured conductor to every operating condition. The output is span-level compliance against the operator's envelope — not an after-the-fact audit.
Each phase captured directly from LiDAR returns and modelled as a catenary. The base geometry that everything downstream is built on.
Still / normal / hot-load conductor positions derived via catenary physics from the captured geometry, conductor type, span length and temperature curve.
Conductor under maximum-sag conditions differenced against the captured terrain. Every span gets a clearance band — compliant, margin, sub-threshold.
Distance from every canopy return to every conductor under maximum-sag conditions. Breaches flagged span by span, ranked by severity, geo-located for work orders.
Tower geometry, insulators, dampers, jumpers and earth-wire all captured in the same flight. Asset register and condition assessment without climbing.
Drone capture brings transmission-grade outputs into distribution-network budgets. Refresh cycles measured in months, not years.
Formatted for direct use in PLS-CADD, PLS-POLE, ArcGIS, AutoCAD, and the GIS / vegetation-management tools network operators already run.
Per-conductor 3D catenary calibrated to capture-time temperature, with operating-condition envelopes (still, normal, max-sag).
Span-by-span min ground clearance under maximum-sag conditions, with location, severity and compliance status.
Span-by-span vegetation breaches against the maximum-sag envelope, with location, severity, dominant species and recommended work zone.
Tower outline, crossarms, insulators, dampers, jumpers and earth-wire — geo-referenced, span-keyed and ready for asset register upload.
Conductors (per phase), towers, structures, vegetation and ground classified and segregated. Spans-keyed for direct lookup.
Conductor drift, tower settlement, vegetation growth and clearance trend between captures — for predictive maintenance and audit defence.
Confirm network extent, conductor types, temperature curves and envelope spec with network operations and vegetation contractor.
Drone flight along the corridor at conductor-level density. CASA permits, network coordination, lineside notifications. Capture-time temperature recorded.
Per-phase catenary modelling, envelope extrapolation, ground clearance compute, vegetation breach detection. QA pass against control checks.
Clearance reports and vegetation breach packs landed with operations and contractor. Re-fly cadence aligned to compliance cycle.
We work with distribution and transmission network operators across Australia's NEM and SWIS jurisdictions. Tell us the network extent, the conductor types and the compliance cycle — we'll scope a capture programme that delivers transmission-grade outputs at distribution-grade budget.