Macomb County leads state in AI and drone inspections

MACOMB COUNTY — The Macomb County Public Works Office announced May 20 that their use of artificial intelligence and drones for critical underground infrastructure inspections will save the county millions of dollars and hours in staff time.

“The Macomb County Public Works Department is very excited and delighted to announce that we will be the first ones in the state of Michigan to be using some new technology, artificial intelligence, AI, as it’s commonly called,” said Macomb County Public Works Commissioner Candice S. Miller in an informational video.

The technology will allow for critical underground infrastructure inspections as often as needed.

“When we get all the information from this drone and then upload it into our AI software, we’re able to determine what the condition of our underground infrastructure is — every one of our pipes, all of our interceptors — and it allows our management team to put together a capital improvement program to make sure that our infrastructure is maintained properly and does not fail,” said Miller in a written release. “We are going to be saving literally millions of dollars.”

Miller continued about the drone and AI technology in the video.

“We are way ahead of the curve and we’re very excited with that,” she said.

Vincent Astorino, operations and flow manager for the Macomb County Public Works Office, explained how the drone works. The drone is about 16 inches in diameter with lights and a 4K high-resolution camera, protected by a cage and can be lowered into the sewer and flown up to 1,000 feet with a pilot on top of the surface with a controller. The drone has gone through pipes ranging in diameter from 54 inches to 12 feet, recording video that the engineers then review.

“Right now, we’re inspecting about 150,000 linear feet of linear pipe every three years. The footage we’ve been getting has been extremely difficult for us to come up with those comprehensive plans of what we needed to do,” said Astorino in the video. “Adding these tools into our toolbox, we will be able to better identify the needs across the system. (This) has been a night and day difference for us.”

Engineers are building a database from inspections performed in 2017, 2020 and 2023. Officials have brought in inspection data of more than 400,000 linear feet of pipe and more than 650 manholes. In one of the initial reassessments of previous data, the artificial intelligence found a few additional structural issues in a sewer. This is all part of the Public Works Office’s asset management plan, according to their written release.

The high-resolution video recorded by the drone with improved lighting is efficiently analyzed and scored by a software program called SewerAI, according to Miller’s statement. Previously, video captured with poor lighting took many hours for consultants to record, as well as many hours to analyze.

SewerAI gave a deeper analysis of two stretches of large pipe in the Macomb Interceptor Drain and determined those areas did not require immediate rehabilitative lining. This could be postponed, and efforts focused elsewhere in the long-term capital improvement plan for the Macomb Interceptor Drainage District, according to Miller. This reportedly resulted in a short-term savings of $4 million.

Sinkholes have recently been reported in Warren in the area of 12 Mile Road between Hoover Road and Van Dyke Avenue, which cost nearly $200,000 to repair.

The cost for the drone and the artificial intelligence software totaled $100,000. Macomb County had been spending about $1 million every three years for inspections, which included a contractor collecting the information, analyzing and coding the data, then reporting it to the department’s engineers. That expense is now eliminated, and staff time is freed up, which increases productivity, according to Miller.

In December 2016 a sinkhole engulfed homes on 15 Mile Road in Fraser one week before Miller took office as the Macomb County public works commissioner.  She and her team have made this a top priority.

“We’ve been doing whatever is necessary with the goal of preventing a reoccurrence of another underground infrastructure disaster. Inspections are an important element of that effort, and use of the drone and SewerAI software enables us to perform that task much quicker, more effectively and more efficiently while saving ratepayers millions of dollars,” Miller said in a written statement.