00:00All right, who did see a big balloon
00:05in front of Vivatech today?
00:10Okay, nice.
00:11So for the one that didn't see it yet,
00:13we have the highlighter right at the entrance of Vivatech.
00:20But first, let me show you a bit of my story.
00:26So I'm Martin Boken, I'm an engineer,
00:29but before becoming an engineer,
00:32I wanted to become a pilot.
00:36But as you can see, I have glasses.
00:39And so with those eyes not working well,
00:43well, you cannot be a pilot.
00:45And so I did engineering schools.
00:47And at that school, I learned that our critical infrastructures
00:53all across the globe, power lines, pipelines, and railways,
00:57were still inspected by helicopters.
01:04Helicopters to transport one camera to take pictures of those assets,
01:10well, it's not efficient.
01:12They emit one ton of CO2 every single hour.
01:17It's only visual inspection.
01:19It's expensive, 2,000 euros every single hour.
01:25And there is a high crash risk linked to the use of helicopters.
01:31And so when we've seen this problem,
01:36we looked at solutions on the market that were used.
01:41Why drones are not used to inspect those assets?
01:45Well, classic drones, they fly for 30 minutes.
01:49This enables operators to do not enough kilometers per day.
01:56It's not efficient enough.
01:58Maximum 15 kilometers per day.
02:03Helicopters do 200 to 300 kilometers a day.
02:06So actually today, the cost of drones when you want to inspect assets
02:11is more expensive than the cost of helicopters.
02:15And that's the problem, right?
02:18And so other solutions, by foot, by satellites,
02:22are not scalable enough, are not precise enough.
02:26Satellites are too far away, and they cannot bring the precision we need.
02:31And so we come up with this solution, which is a highlighter.
02:35The highlighter is a drone, but instead of flying for 30 minutes,
02:39we fly for 10 hours, one full day of inspection.
02:44This enables our clients to have the best knowledge of the network
02:50and at massive scale.
02:53In France, we have 1.4 billion of kilometers of power lines.
02:58300,000 kilometers of pipelines.
03:0150,000 kilometers of rails.
03:03All of those assets need to be inspected.
03:06And right now, it is still done by helicopters.
03:10And so highlight, we come, we propose a service,
03:13we collect the data, we process the data,
03:15and then we sell the reports of the data inspected to the clients.
03:21How it works?
03:23First step forward, let me launch the video.
03:29So that's with Enedis, one of our first clients,
03:34inspecting power lines in France, in the countryside.
03:38In one day, we did like, in this video, like 100 kilometers,
03:42and with plenty of different cameras.
03:45Classic cameras, lidars, thermal cameras.
03:48We can, in only one fly, understand, in a big depth, how is the network and how we need to
03:58maintain it.
03:59We can spot the vegetation, we can spot the problems on the integrators, on the network,
04:04and those informations can help our clients to act on it and to make a better maintenance.
04:09That's what we do.
04:10We want to reduce maintenance costs and make sure that our critical assets are always in good state.
04:17Because those assets, those power lines, that's what allows us to have light here, right?
04:23Without those, we cannot have electricity at Viratech.
04:27And so, how does it work?
04:34How can we be cost effective?
04:36How can we scale inspections?
04:39What about the wind?
04:41All of those questions, we asked them, and we were able to answer them.
04:46Here, you can see how it works.
04:47There is a truck that comes next to the field.
04:50The truck driver takes off the highlighter from the truck and launches it.
04:54And starting from that, the highlighter flies automatically above the assets.
04:59We can see the problems from the control room.
05:04We can spot the problems and live see if it's an emergency or not.
05:11And at the end of the flight, we sort all of the data with AI
05:15and enable precise analysis of the state of the network.
05:20We've done that with Enedis, as you can see.
05:22But we have also done that with SNCF on high-speed waves.
05:29On Natron, TerraGas pipeline to inspect gas leaks.
05:34On Omexermen and RT's power line to inspect defaults on those power lines.
05:39And on Enedis power lines.
05:42And it has been successful.
05:45We've launched four years ago.
05:54In 2024, we made seven kilometers with Enedis.
05:59Then the year after, we've made...
06:02Whoa, sorry.
06:06Okay.
06:07The year after, we made 40 kilometers in one day.
06:11And then the year after, we've made 100 kilometers in one day.
06:15That is the scale of Highlight.
06:17This is how fast we go.
06:19And actually, in Autumn 2025, we did 600 kilometers in only six hours.
06:27So now we have a team of 20 people.
06:30Designing those airships, making instructions from them.
06:33And transforming the way we understand our world.
06:42And actually, when you see this image here, that's the only drone that can fly in urban areas.
06:53Currently, drones are notable, unfortunately, because of the risk.
06:56And we were able to unlock this.
07:03And when you think about drones, when you think about airships, the question is, what about the risk?
07:10What happens if there is a problem?
07:12What happens if there is a crash?
07:15Actually, here, that's a test we've made.
07:17And you can see the highlighter going down.
07:20The motors are off.
07:22That is a crash the highlighter is currently having.
07:27And so, when you see this video, you understand that, well, that is safe.
07:33That is much safer than helicopters, much safer than drones, much safer than any other solution you can use to
07:39do inspection.
07:41Because it floats.
07:44It cannot damage anything.
07:48And this is what, you know, what also allowed us to inspect at scale those assets.
07:54Because this solution is, well, for us and for our clients, one of the best ones to do those inspections.
08:05So thank you for listening.
08:07Thank you for your time.
08:09If you want to see the highlighter, if you want to discuss with the team, come outside.
08:14We are here to talk with you.
08:17And if you have any questions, feel free.
08:30Any questions? Yes.
08:33I thank you very much for the presentation.
08:35I'm wondering, how is the robustness against the weather?
08:39Because all the presentation we see is the good weather.
08:42So how about wind?
08:43How about the sunlight?
08:46Yeah. So that's a good question.
08:49So this solution that you can see, I can fly with up to 40 kilometers of wind in operation.
08:58So that is quite like classic drones, you know.
09:01Of course, when it rains, when there is big tornadoes, we don't fly.
09:08But we plan the flight in advance and make sure that, well, the flight is well planned to make the
09:14inspection.
09:15And so, actually, you know, when you see an airship, you see the biggest challenge is the wind.
09:21And that's why we've made 12 different iterations of the product to be able right now to have the product
09:28that works the best in all conditions.
09:31Of course, the first one was not perfect, but now it's working good.
09:41How do you keep it back to earth, to the ground, when it's over and you collected all the data
09:52you needed?
09:55So after one full day of inspection, we just land whenever we need to land.
10:02We don't need airport, we don't need infrastructures.
10:05We put it back on the trailer and then we collect the data and send it with satellite connectivity to
10:14the cloud.
10:15And so then after the day, we just swap the cylinders, swap the energy, and the airship is ready to
10:23fly again the day after.
10:34All right.
10:37Well, thank you, everyone.
10:39Have a nice end of day and see you soon.
Comments