The City of Minneapolis Surface Water and Sewers Division has employed drones in its smoke testing program to get a better look at the tops of buildings without having to send workers onto private property.
Pump smoke into a sanitary sewer system and observe. It’s a common method municipalities use to identify illicit sewer connections. But even a fairly straightforward process has room for improvement, as the city of Minneapolis has shown.
For the past two years, the city’s Surface Water and Sewers Division has experimented with using a drone in its annual smoke testing in hopes of improving efficiency as well as worker safety. Smoke testing in residential neighborhoods...
