Unlike some of the latest consumer drones, the ASIO X flies almost automatically, and also requires manual control in some very relentless locations, and in some very relentless locations, “it is dark, the air flow can quickly change in confined spaces, and the flight paths on water flowing in confined ducts are challenging in restricted ducts.” As a result, he left the expert’s flight: “Our main operator Captain Zach was able to fly over some very tricky environments.”

Having said that, the inspection process itself is simple. "Reduce the antenna into the manhole to provide signal strength from the drone controller to the drone," Astorino told Wired. "The operator will fly from one manhole to the next manhole, recording video through that flight path." Over about 20 minutes of battery life, the ASIO X can record about 1,000 feet of pipes in one flight, capturing not only video, but also LiDAR and infrared scans, and read gas readings as they pass through a portion of the sewer.

Under the old system, video data will be analyzed on site, while the camera operator records defects while navigating through the pipeline. Now send the data captured by the drone to Sewerai’s contractor, which runs it through its AI-assisted algorithm to automatically identify defects. Astorino told me that this is a game-changer who saved his team a lot of time and money.

“We tested months on site at various contractors to test what Sewerai did on the same video, and each time Sewerai performed well when it was able to find and code correctly.” Previously, it might take several months to check a portion of the sewer, but Sevalle had reached an agreement to send data analysis back to the county within 10 days; Astorino said it was usually done within 24 hours.

The team was impressed by the packages, and even in areas where drones could not be performed, more traditional inspection methods (e.g., diameter pipes, final data) were now sent for analysis rather than encoding on site. Old data can also be quickly reviewed and reanalysed, thus making up for the flaws that the original contractor might have missed at the time. This means repair work can be carried out where it is most needed, preventing worsening conditions such as catastrophic and expensive events, such as sewage puddles in 2016.

Macomb County has been a pioneer in the field. It is the first county in Michigan to use this combination of drone and AI software for underground infrastructure inspections and has won two in-state awards for its forward-looking thinking. But Vince Astorino told me that he and his team were always looking for new ways to modernize their operations. "It's hard to figure out a great leap in technology in this area, especially the great AI games that are playing around us. We're keeping our choices."