Latest methods of power facilities diagnostic and the methods of accidents prevention presume the work of the team who personally inspect all the details, which is very time-consuming. A good alternative to this may be unmanned aircraft systems (further on – UAS) to be used for remote monitoring and search for defects of the equipment. This method of UAS is already well-known and some Russian companies (“ZALA”, “Geoscan”, “Unmanned Systems”, etc.) offer this service. Although the civil sector of the UAS market is lagging behind its military section, the former is expanding, rapidly developing, and provides the opportunity to choose the appropriate device for enhancing the assessment of power facilities` technical condition. This issue is relevant as there is a tendency in Russia towards the production digitalization. UAS will make the diagnostic process faster and more highly-technological, as all the information from the measuring devices will be transmitted to the storage. In the long run UAS will also make production cheaper, as the number of operators as well as the number of their working hours will be less than in case with the regular working teams. The paper analyses some models of UAS, their technical features and cost-effectiveness of their mass utilization. The factors regarding the devices as such and severe weather conditions of some regions in Russia are to be taken into account.
sUAS and their application in observing geomorphological processes