He Tao's team discussing and debugging drone performance. Photo by Lai Xiaolong

He Tao operating a milling machine to process drone components in his workshop. Photo by Zhou Zheng

He Tao debugging a drone. Photo by Zhou Zheng

In the golden autumn season, as morning mist just outlined the contours of Bayue Mountain, the digital screen at the Intelligent Drone Inspection Center of State Grid Chongqing Electric Power Company Yongchuan Power Supply Branch was already flickering with 28 green dots representing drone nests. With a light swipe of He Tao's finger on the touch screen, inspection commands traveled through the power grid's dedicated network, penetrating the clouds—the nest opened, rotors stirred, and the machine ascended, flying along transmission line routes like a silver hummingbird.

"Look, this drone is circling the 500kV Yonglu line corner tower for inspection," He Tao pointed to the high-definition footage transmitted in real-time on the screen, where bolt patterns on the tower materials were clearly visible. "These 'aerial spirits' can now autonomously plan flight routes and automatically generate defect reports, covering a service area of 2,786 square kilometers within their operational range, revolutionizing traditional manual inspection methods and greatly improving inspection efficiency!"

In 2020, "Drone Assembly, Adjustment and Maintenance Worker" was included in the National Occupational Classification Dictionary as a new profession. As a drone assembly, adjustment and maintenance worker and chief engineer of the Intelligent Inspection Team at the Transmission and Distribution Operation and Maintenance Center of Yongchuan Power Supply Branch, He Tao received the National Model Worker honor this year: "The professional 'new track' I chose out of passion and responsibility ten years ago was the right choice!"

**From Office to Mountain Peak: Using Drones to "Pioneer" the "Folds" of the Mountain City**

In 2015, He Tao's job transfer created quite a stir. "Leaving a stable office job to go to the most demanding and tiring inspection frontline?" Family and colleagues couldn't understand his choice.

At that time, he worked in the Development Planning Department of State Grid Chongqing Electric Power Company Yongchuan Power Supply Branch, holding an important office position. What triggered his career path change was the imported four-rotor drone the company had just purchased in early summer that year, costing hundreds of thousands of yuan, with no one knowing how to fly it or daring to try. In He Tao's words, "If it crashed once, a car's worth of value would be gone."

Company leadership consulted him because they heard he loved "tinkering" with model aircraft and was a "technical expert." Indeed, using Sichuan-Chongqing dialect, He Tao had been a "fix-it-all" since childhood, taking apart any electrical device he encountered and not stopping until he figured it out. He didn't get into university due to his playful high school years, so he became a repair worker at an electrical shop near his home community, working on everything from motors to transformers, getting covered in oil and grime daily, accumulating rich hands-on experience.

"The more I worked, the more I loved this trade. Wanting to improve, I still needed further education." Understanding this principle, He Tao settled down, quit his job, and studied intensively, eventually getting into university to study Electrical Engineering and Automation. After graduation, he joined the power sector for development planning and became president of the Yongchuan Model Aircraft Association in his spare time. When he heard the company had purchased drones and leadership approached him, He Tao barely hesitated: "I request to transfer to the frontline to work as an inspector!"

This choice was motivated not only by passion but also by responsibility—Chongqing's mountainous and densely forested terrain, combined with unbearably hot summers, made transmission line inspection tasks heavy and difficult. He Tao witnessed and empathized with the dedication and hardships endured by generations of line workers. "The emergence of drones as something new holds promise for changing the traditional manual power line inspection work mode. I'm willing to dive into the frontline and pioneer a new path of technological empowerment in Chongqing's mountainous 'folds'!"

What lay before him, however, was a rugged path filled with obstacles and thorns: After transferring to the transmission inspection team, he carried imported drone equipment into deep mountains daily, testing drone wind resistance performance on mountain peaks, repeatedly calibrating camera angles under power towers, studying "Drone Flight Mechanics" even while eating during outdoor camping.

Once, to test visibility in dense fog, he climbed the Haitangya power tower at 3 AM and didn't realize his clothes were completely soaked by dew until the drone emerged from the fog...

From selection and assembly to flight testing and debugging, He Tao led the development of China's first ultraviolet inspection drone, combining full-day blind ultraviolet detectors with drones. This innovation addressed the shortcomings of handheld ultraviolet equipment's low detection efficiency and limited shooting angles, enabling early detection of discharge hazards and eliminating equipment defects in their infancy. It won the first National Power Inspection Technology Innovation Application "Golden Inspection Award."

Through He Tao's efforts, State Grid Yongchuan Power Supply Company's drone specialty grew from an initial 2-person interest group to today's 18-person intelligent inspection team, improving inspection efficiency by 5 times and marking the arrival of an era where "machine inspection is primary, human inspection is auxiliary." The transformative role of the new profession "Drone Assembly, Adjustment and Maintenance Worker" gradually began to shine brilliantly.

**Innovation and Application: New Technology Brings Industry Breakthroughs**

Is drone assembly, adjustment and maintenance just about discussing tool usage? Far from being so narrow. In He Tao's view, "We must be problem-oriented, continuously tackle challenges, and innovate applications to bring breakthrough value for industry promotion."

Power lines frequently suffer from "airborne garbage." When circuits spark due to plastic film entanglement and inspection workers climb 20 meters high to clear obstacles, spending 3 hours to restore power supply—witnessing this scene, He Tao had a sudden inspiration: "Let the drone fly up and use fire to burn it off!"

This idea shocked his colleagues—a drone carrying a fire source, what if it crashes? Without hesitation, He Tao dove into scrap piles after work: dismantling old oil pumps to modify spray nozzles, taking apart gas stoves to make ignition systems... The most dangerous moment came during workshop testing when the ignition system suddenly exploded, the drone lost control and crashed toward the ground, with propellers grazing past his left wrist, cutting open his main vein. Blood instantly soaked his sleeve, and he was rushed to the hospital for emergency treatment, leaving a visible scar to this day.

In January 2018, the nation's first flame-throwing obstacle-clearing drone was put into service in Yongchuan, clearing foreign objects in 30 seconds—20 times more efficient than manual clearing.

Traditional drones rely on satellite positioning and become "blind" when entering indoor substations, cable tunnels, and similar environments. Addressing this problem, He Tao led a technical team to test 12 different radar modules, reducing radar-drone adaptation error from 10 centimeters to 2 centimeters, ultimately successfully combining hybrid solid-state lidar with drones. This breakthrough overcame traditional drones' limitation of requiring satellite positioning, solving the technical challenge of autonomous indoor inspection without satellite signals, enabling drones to fly from outdoors to indoors and significantly improving inspection efficiency in indoor substations, main control rooms, distribution rooms, cable tunnels, and similar scenarios.

During the summer of 2022, Chongqing experienced consecutive hot days with record-breaking power grid loads. He Tao led his team to rush production of "one vehicle, four machines" mobile inspection vehicles—wherever the vehicle went, drones would take off from rooftop nests, with infrared thermal imaging cameras real-time capturing surrounding heat points. During those 40 days, He Tao slept in the inspection vehicle every night, following the convoy on 385 special inspections, ultimately achieving zero failures in the responsible area's lines and effectively supporting stable summer power supply.

"During one inspection, the conductor temperature data transmitted by the drone suddenly spiked. I immediately coordinated power shutdown for cooling, successfully avoiding a potential power grid accident."

Today, walking into the "He Tao Craftsman Workshop," fixed-wing and multi-rotor drones, hot-melt 3D printers, and other equipment are dazzling... The growing popularity of drone assembly, adjustment and maintenance professions perfectly complements the rapid rise of domestic drones. "From 'carefully' operating imported drones ten years ago to today's widespread application of domestic drones in power and other fields, it's precisely autonomous innovation technology that brings us more possibilities for industry applications and career development," He Tao reflects: "We practitioners are fortunate to stand at the forefront of innovation, and only on new tracks can we achieve acceleration!"

**Full-Domain Autonomous Inspection: Digital Empowerment Driving Broader Transformation**

New job categories and advantages aren't limited to hardware innovation alone. "Using drones to replace manual work is the right direction, but technical requirements for pilots are quite high." Despite extensive training, He Tao still felt promotion methods could be more "advanced."

An idea emerged: through route planning and automatic preset trajectories, "even without highly skilled pilots, inspection quality can be guaranteed."

Using tilt photography modeling for substations resulted in blurry details, making equipment nameplates unreadable; switching to point cloud models prevented preview of overall layout. "Can we 'stick' them together?" He Tao and colleagues worked for over a month, using algorithms to fuse the advantages of both models, finally enabling route planning that could see bolt patterns clearly while grasping the overall picture, pioneering domestically the "Autonomous Drone Substation Inspection Technology Based on Combined Tilt Photography and Point Cloud Digital Models."

Now, route planning has become "past tense." "Using visual recognition and AI technology through drone onboard computing power enables adaptive inspection that not only discovers problems but also predicts potential hazards."

In July 2024, with support from Chongqing and Yongchuan power companies, He Tao led the construction of the power industry's first prefecture-level "Full-Domain Autonomous Drone Inspection Demonstration Zone," deploying 28 fixed airports and mobile inspection vehicles, building a fully autonomous inspection architecture that achieved complete geographical coverage of the 2,786 square kilometer operational area. Autonomous inspection workload covers 39 outdoor substations, 2,070 kilometers of transmission lines, and 5,120 kilometers of distribution lines, with emergency response capability reaching "minute-level," and pioneering fully privatized deployment of control systems within the industry, improving inspection efficiency while effectively ensuring data security.

National Model Worker, National May 1st Labor Medal, State Grid Craftsman... Under demonstration and promotion at all levels, He Tao and his team have won the "Golden Inspection Award" five times and obtained 14 national patents. Drone innovation applications have been promoted throughout Chongqing Company, helping improve equipment defect discovery capability by 12%, reducing power grid failure rates by 6%, and saving 30 million yuan in labor costs annually.

He Tao sincerely exclaims: "New professions contain new momentum. Through dedicated research and innovative applications, new tracks can unleash new advantages!"