We officially start the long journey of developing a robotic maintenance platform for wind turbine blades, designed to move beyond inspection-only robotics toward industrial-scale blade maintenance. The system is being built around seven operator-driven requirements:
- High efficiency, i.e. the system can be deployed in half to one hour.
- High reliability, i.e. the system won't break or crash.
- Fail-safe recovery, i.e. when the system detaches from the blade, it can be reattached quickly and safely.
- High payload, i.e. 30-70kg or more.
- Long endurance, i.e. continued operation for 8 hours or more.
- Deployment versatility, i.e. applies to onshore, offshore and floating wind turbines.
- Economic scalability.