Washington state uses a $30,000 drone to combat graffiti

Washington state is preparing a $1 million anti-vandalism project, part of which includes testing a $30,000 drone that paints over graffiti. Signed into law on March 15 by Governor Jay Inslee, the “Pilot program for graffiti control and reductionThe measure will take effect June 6 and includes “field testing of spray drone technology” along Interstate 5 between Tacoma and Seattle, as well as in north Spokane.

According to the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), the idea comes from a maintenance crew member who had a “light bulb moment” while painting over graffiti for the second time in one week. To address hard-to-reach areas on bridges and overpasses, WSDOT relies on so-called Under Bridge Inspection Trucks (UBITs). But with only six UBITs in the entire state, it can take a while to reserve one and schedule it to be sent to graffiti sites.

“If drones could be used for inspections, why couldn’t they be used to spray paint?” the maintenance worker wondered.

[Related: A father and son designed the world’s fastest quadcopter drone.]

Unfortunately for them, searching the internet turned up no such drones to purchase. The department quickly reached out to Aquiline, a self-described “all-American drone and cloud technology company” that offers similar drone technology for tasks like roof cleaning, window cleaning, and window washing. To extinguish a fire. WSDOT thinks the company’s Spartacus Endure drone system, which costs about $30,000, should provide the solution, after some additional modifications to allow the pressure nozzle to handle paint.

But even with such price tags, it doesn’t seem like Aquiline is spending much of its profits on website maintenance. If Boing Boing As noted earlier today, Aquiline’s page appears to be available intermittently. Google Chrome currently marks the domain as ‘not private’ when we try to visit it. Perusing the warning, however, reveals a partially outdated site that promises services “Coming Fall 2022,” alongside links to additional broken subpages for “solutions” like border security and “crowd counting.”

Aquiline’s red flags are apparently worth it to Washington. WSDOT estimates it will have spent more than $815,000 on graffiti removal in 2023, after accounting for staff time and equipment costs. “That’s nearly 10,300 labor hours spent covering 700,000 square feet of graffiti along our highways,” the department wrote. “But that’s still not enough to remove all the graffiti that appears along our highways.”

Perhaps the new $1 million in state funding will help in WSDOT’s eternal war against the graffiti artists. State funding stipulates that the department must submit a full report on their new campaign after spending the next few months on “how these drones work, how they apply paint and whether they can cover graffiti.” It remains to be seen how big of an ‘if’ that is.

WSDOT claims the drone program only accounts for a “small portion of total revenue.” [new] financing,” which also covers crew labor and paint. Presumably, more of these funds will cover the additional work required to send WSDOT’s new drone into battle. Since it is illegal to fly drones over active lanes, the ministry noted that it must block lanes and monitor “continuous delay closures” while testing the new bot.