Autonomous Inspection
Powerful data analytics and autonomous blade inspections
PROJECT OUTLINE
Meticulously crafted
The rapid transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources presents new opportunities. Wind power, a pioneer in renewable energy, has increasing demands for onshore and offshore plants all over the world. Therefore inspections of wind turbines are crucial to maintain a steady and failure-free power delivery. Additionally, onshore turbines are often in close proximity to houses and cities, making hardware quality assurance a duty.
Sleek and stylish
Traditionally, turbine blade inspections have been carried out by industrial climbers, resulting in a complex, time-consuming, and error-prone process. Therefore, Sulzer Schmid has developed a unique reliable and comprehensive solution for drone-based autonomous inspections: the 3DX blade platform.
Project Overview
Since 2018, we have been supporting Sulzer Schmid in enhancing the user experience by providing easy and intuitive high-volume data aggregation, resulting in a customer tailored, dependable blade condition reporting.
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The image data is captured utilizing autonomous drones. Once uploaded into the cloud, the user can process the images and generate highly customizable reports and dahsboards at a push of a button.
Analysis The Damage Progression module allows users to compare damages which have been recorded during previous inspections with new inspection data. The progression of a damage is displayed in a time series of recorded inspections, so that it can be easily evaluated. In this way, these defects, can be closely monitored and its evolution tracked.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Along with solar energy, wind power is playing a major role around the world in reducing our carbon emissions from fossil fuels. The massive size and moving parts of wind turbines make them very costly to maintain. Autonomous solutions play a critical role in developing an efficient operation and maintenance strategy that ultimately leads to a viable transition to more renewable energy sources.
