A drone A new pilot program has introduced a graffiti-painting process in Washington state, according to a news release from the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT). And if the new spraying drones are successful, one could easily imagine other municipalities across the country using drones to remove graffiti from hard-to-reach places.
The Washington state legislature has passed a bill Last month This provides $1 million to fight graffiti. Part of the program involves upgrading traffic cameras to make it easier to identify people spraying graffiti on the state’s roads. However, the second part of the bill calls for testing new methods to remove graffiti from high areas that are difficult to paint – a removal that can quickly become expensive.
“Special trucks, so-called UBITs, are needed for graffiti that is difficult to access. These trucks are in high demand and we have six of them to cover the entire state. They are typically reserved for higher priority bridge maintenance and inspection work,” the WSDOT said in a new blog Monday.
Mike Gauger, a member of WSDOT’s Tacoma area maintenance team, is credited with originating the idea for the graffiti-fighting drones, but no commercial drones have been sold for this type of work. Gauger is in contact with a drone company called Eaglewhich already had a drone model called Endure that was used for window cleaning and roof cleaning.
The first attempt to build a drone that could properly spray paint failed, according to WSDOT, but after some modifications a working drone has now been created that meets the maintenance team’s needs. WSDOT uploaded a video to Youtube shows the drone in action.
WSDOT believes this is the first graffiti removal drone program ever launched, and that seems to be an accurate assessment. Drones have been used for all sorts of non-traditional applications in recent years, such as the flamethrower drone burns garbage tested by power lines or water-spraying drones Fight fire.
Highway maintenance employees in Washington with existing Part 107 Drone Licenses will be trained on the new drones as part of this pilot program, and field testing will continue this year primarily in the cities of Tacoma and Olympia.
Even though the drones will allow work teams to reach places that were previously more difficult, there are still numerous hurdles that could derail the tests.
“Drones are not legally allowed to be flown over active traffic lanes, so the areas we cover will be in closed work zones or managed with rolling closures while the drones are in use,” WSDOT wrote Monday.
WSDOT will submit a report on its progress to the state legislature in December. And if it works, we wouldn’t be surprised if other cities and states explore using drones to paint over graffiti across the country.