Inspecting and maintaining offshore wind turbines is time consuming, expensive, and hazardous. For humans to inspect each turbine, there’s a constant need for helicopters, favorable weather conditions, highly skilled technicians, and downtime. 

The nature of offshore wind assets lends itself to being helped by robots—namely inspection and maintenance drones. A report from Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult last year estimated that operational expenditure savings thanks to drones in offshore wind could be 18-26%.

Robots are being used in different areas of turbine inspection and maintenance. Amphibian, developed by Innvotek, performs subsea inspections and cleaning—reducing the need and risk for skilled diving teams. BladeBUG is working on drones that can crawl along turbine blades to identify small issues, like erosion, before they become big problems. 

Enel Green Power recently announced it will use Perceptual Robotics’ Dhalion system, which uses drones and AI to automate blade inspection and analysis. Enel expects the system to help provide faster, safer, higher-quality inspections that inform predictive maintenance.

See even more offshore and renewable energy project robotics June 20-22 in Houston at the Energy Drone & Robotics Summit. There will be live demos, use cases, best practices, and the latest trends at the world’s largest event for energy drone and robotics tech!

Register now to save 25% off!