Drones

By Scott Duffin, director of client drone strategy and business development, Skyward, a Verizon Company Drones can come in handy for wind O&M technicians, as long as their use is accepted across all levels of the company. In order for wind techs to gain a helping hand from drones, they should avoid these common pitfalls…

By Scott Duffin, director of client drone strategy and business development, Skyward, a Verizon Company In the aftermath of a natural disaster, drones can be critical tools for first responders and recovery workers. As an eye in the sky, drones provide situational awareness that helps response teams target critical locations even when roads are blocked…

By Donavon Graves, Director of Business Development and Strategic Planning, Skyward – a Verizon company Drone inspections play a vital role in preventive maintenance of vertical structures, ships, worksites and horizontal infrastructure like railroad tracks and power lines. Therefore, connected drones are the next phase of this technology. In the near future, the main mode…

Drones and crawling robots outfitted with special scanning technology could help wind blades stay in service longer, which may help lower the cost of wind energy at a time when blades are getting bigger, pricier, and harder to transport, Sandia National Laboratories researchers say. As part of the Department of Energy’s Blade Reliability Collaborative work, funded by…

Annual wind-turbine blade and tower inspections by drone may greatly increase the safety, efficiency, and accuracy of an inspection service. What’s more is a drone equipped with high-resolution digital and infrared cameras can save time and costs, inspecting multiple wind turbines in the time it used to climb one. “Thermographic testing that used to require…

PrecisionHawk, Inc., a provider of drone technology for the enterprise, has announced PrecisionAnalytics Energy, a complete aerial mapping, modeling, and inspection platform that uses the latest generation of artificial intelligence and machine intelligence to automate analysis of their aerial data. PrecisionAnalytics’ customers can reduce costs up to 80% and dramatically improve safety in the field.…

A new cutting-edge turnkey blade maintenance solution promises to offer a complete blade inspection to repair solution for the global wind-power industry. The new digital solution is the result of a new partnership between Clobitcs and GEV Wind Power, and is designed to offer greater efficiency, reduced costs, and quick turbine inspections. “Our collaboration means…

Clobotics, a provider in industry-level computer vision solutions, announced a global strategic partnership with GEV Wind Power, one of the largest wind O&M companies in Europe. The global partnership will use Clobotics pioneering artificial intelligence solutions to deliver AI-based autonomous blade inspections for wind turbines, fueling the ongoing digitalization of the global wind O&M market.…

Sulzer & Schmid Laboratories AG, a Swiss company pioneering next-generation technology for the inspection of wind-turbine rotor blades, has launched a new highly competitive inspection platform. The company’s new 3DX HD product has been developed as a cost-effective solution to cope with large volumes of high-definition blade inspections. Based on the compact and flexible DJI…

A few years ago, sending wind technicians up-tower was the O&M option to conduct turbine tower and blade inspections. Advancements in drone technology or UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), however, have turned such labor-intensive maintenance efforts into a more precise, streamlined process. The global wind-turbine inspection drone market is expected to $6 billion in the next…

 The Energy Drone Coalition (powered by InnovateEnergy) and DRONEII.COM have announced the release of their joint report, “Drones in the Energy Industry.”  This independent report on power and utility industries finds a market in transition from field trials and POC’s to scaling in the enterprise for UAV operations. It also reveals the initial insights into the critical infrastructure market’s use of…

  There are now 18,814 MW of installed offshore wind capacity in 17 markets around the world. Offshore wind farms are susceptible to many maintenance issues from the extreme conditions at sea, such as high wind and elemental exposure. Blade health is key to continuous turbine operation and reduced downtime. To mitigate blade damage and…

In one of the most significant advancements of unmanned aircraft under development by a U.S. utility, Xcel Energy is operating drones beyond visual line of sight during ongoing inspections of transmission lines near Denver. “Today’s flight takes us a step closer to fully integrating unmanned aircraft into our operations,” said Ben Fowke, chairman, president and CEO,…

ABJ Drones is currently launching WindVue, a newly developed unmanned aircraft system (UAS) that will change how wind-turbine blades are inspected in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Ireland. “The current method of inspecting wind blades is antiquated, dangerous, and costly,” said Vip Jain, CEO of ABJ Drones. “Our patented system increases efficiency…

PrecisionHawk, Inc., a provider of drone technology for the enterprise, announced that it has purchased HAZON, Inc. and InspecTools Inc. These businesses specialize in the delivery of inspection services and technology for the energy industry, bringing integration between the collection and analysis of drone data. HAZON brings extensive aviation experience, standards-based operating procedures, certified drone…

  By Mike Kahn, Chief Marketing Officer AEE Aviation Technology, Inc.  As of the end of 2017, nearly 345,000 wind turbines were operational in the world. What this means is more than 1,035,000 turbine blades are subject to wear, requiring regular inspections and care throughout their lifespan. Advanced drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), are…

Clobotics, a global provider in intelligent computer vision solutions for the wind power and retail industries, announced that it has closed an additional $11 million (USD) in funding in a continuation of its Series A round of financing. Venture capital raised in this round now totals $21 million. Founded by former Microsoft executives, Clobotics’ solutions…

SkySpecs, an award-winning provider of robotics solutions for the wind energy industry, has successfully completed an automated inspection of the world’s largest offshore wind turbine at Ørsted‘s (formerly DONG Energy) Burbo Bank Extension, in the Irish Sea. Ørsted says the testing and automated inspection of the 8-MW offshore turbine was an important step in gaining confidence…

In this episode of WindTalk podcast, we discuss drones for wind-turbine blade and tower inspections. Our expert guest is Danny Ellis, CEO of SkySpecs, a company that offers drone inspections for wind turbines, combined with intuitive software that allows for high-quality data capture. In fact, SkySpecs offers a 15-minute automated robotic inspection, which we touch…

Ardenna and HUVRdata have partnered to provide fully automated defect detection, reporting, and analytics to the energy sector. This enhanced platform unites Ardenna’s AI-based automated defect detection software with HUVR’s Automation and Enterprise Industrial Asset Management Reporting and Analytic toolset to provide customers with a state-of-the-art industrial asset inspections. The partnership was initially announced in…