Unleash Live has teamed up with Optus, Amazon Web Services and electricity provider Endeavour Energy in a technology trial it is hoped will convince aviation authorities to relax laws limiting the ways drones can be used to monitor critical infrastructure.

The Sydney-based start-up, which recently scored an $8 million investment from SafetyCulture, will use its AI-based video-recognition platform to identify damage to Endeavour Energy’s power lines in real time, using machine learning (ML) to analyse high-resolution videos shot by drones flying above and around the powerlines.