Project at a glance

Drones4Energy is 3 years, Grand Solutions Innovation Fund Denmark project that aims to build a collaborativeautonomous, and continuously operating drone system that will be offered to powerline operators to inspect the power grid accurately, frequently, and autonomously.

Key Features

Energy Harvesting

The project aims at building a light-weight energy harvester to tap energy from the powerline cables to charge the drones without modifying the power grid’s infrastructure.

Artificial Intelligence Algorithms

The project will improve the state-of-the-art machine-learning algorithms to optimize the inspection results thereby it is possible to only store the relevant inspection data on-board of the drone.

Swarm System

The project will reduce the inspection time and improve its accuracy by building a collaborative drone system to fly along the cables to inspect all of the sides of the cables at once.

Harsh environment operations

The project aims at building a resilient drone system that is capable to overcome the electromagnetic interferences of the high-voltage cables on the drone electrical components.


Project title: Drones4Energy 
Project number: 8057-00038A
Starting date: 1 December, 2018
Duration in months: 36
Funding: Funded by Innovation Fund Denmark with a grant of
DKK 14 million and a total budget of DKK 19 million (~3M €)
Program: Grand Solutions
Partners: University of Southern Denmark, Aarhus University,
Fraunhofer, GeoPartner Inspection, Develco, Science Venture Denmark

Project leader: Prof. Dr. Emad Samuel Malki Ebeid, SDU UAS, University of Southern Denmark.