High (tech) visitors on campus! It's not just bats flying around here - occasionally you can also see drones equipped with advanced cameras and sensors. These drones circle our buildings to conduct detailed façade inspections. The resulting data provides valuable insights that support our commitment to proactive maintenance and innovation.
To ensure that the buildings on our campus are properly maintained, building inspections of the façades are carried out periodically. Until recently, this involved having someone in a gondola inspect the façades manually and consult the handover documentation. Our technical partner, J.P. van Eesteren, has now found a smarter way to carry out these inspections, using high-tech drones.
Faster, cheaper and safer
The drones used during these inspections are equipped with a 100-megapixel camera and have a total system value of over €100,000. Thanks to this equipment, inspections can be carried out at lightning speed and with exceptional precision. Patrick Bongers, Maintenance Service Manager at the EUR’s Real Estate & Facilities department, is enthusiastic: “Thanks to these innovative drones, we can carry out structural inspections more quickly, safely and cost-effectively.”
“Thanks to these innovative drones, we can carry out structural inspections more quickly, safely and cost-effectively.”
Patrick Bongers
Service manager Maintenance at Real Estate & Facilities
Extremely accurate
The drone – provided by Aeroscan – flies around the buildings and scans the façade using special cameras and sensors. Thermographic imaging reveals heat loss and insulation issues, something that is impossible to detect with the naked eye. Photogrammetry is also used: a method in which thousands of photos are combined to create an extremely accurate 3D model of the building—with a margin of error of just 0.3 millimeters.
This not only provides a highly detailed inventory of façade elements, materials and their condition, but also forms a reliable basis for drawing up cleaning, maintenance and future renovation policies.
No-fly zone
The Woudestein Campus is located within a no-fly zone, which means that you cannot simply fly a drone there. For this reason, a special exemption has been granted by the national government to allow the inspection flights to take place. During every drone inspection, Aeroscan is in constant contact with the airport control tower and with Air Traffic Control the Netherlands (LVNL). This ensures that flights are always conducted safely and do not interfere with other air traffic.
Good to know
RE&F announces drone inspections in advance wherever possible via the notices on MyEUR. The drones only map building elements and do not record people or other things.
- More information
Do you have any questions regarding this message? Please contact the Service Desk via servicedesk@eur.nl.
