UK-led consortium looks to robots to monitor windfarms and cables
A UK-led consortium is launching a $5m project to use robots for monitoring offshore wind farms and undersea cabling. The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)-backed scheme hopes to improve how wind farms are maintained and managed. The project is developing "novel sensing techniques" to inspect systems in the field, said Dr David Flynn, director of Smart Systems Group at Heriot-Watt University, a member of the consortium. These include a dolphin-inspired local frequency sonar attached to an autonomous vehicle that can be used to inspect undersea cables, and drones to inspect offshore substations.

A UK-led research consortium is spearheading a $5 million project to use robotic and autonomous vehicles for remotely monitoring offshore wind farms and undersea cables.

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)-funded project will aim to improve the way in which wind farms are maintained and managed, according to Dr David Flynn, director of the Smart Systems Group (SSG) at Heriot-Watt University, and a member of the research consortium.

There is still no industry and academia-wide consensus on how best to monitor and maintain wind farms though they have been around for more than five decades or so, says Flynn.

“On an offshore wind farm, you can have around 10 to 20 false alarms each minute,” he said. “So to give us access to the right information, and to put us ahead of the curve in terms of the lifecycle of these assets, we have developed novel sensing technologies to inspect these systems in the field.”

One such technology to be developed by Flynn and colleagues at Heriot-Watt, is a dolphin-inspired low-frequency sonar that can be installed on an autonomous vehicle to inspect undersea cables. The device will travel to spots of interest on the cable, such as those known to be areas of particular vulnerability. It will then emit pulses of sound to generate an image of the inside of the cable.

Subsea cables are extremely expensive, costing the industry millions in offshore insurance claims alone: “We will impede this green industrial revolution if we cannot get resilience and sustainability into the system,” said Flynn. “Investment into offshore wind, as well as wave and tidal, will stop if it cannot become a guaranteed, secure source of generation.”

Other projects being undertaken as part of the consortium include the use of drones to inspect offshore substations, and efforts to address concerns relating to the power electronics and drivetrains within offshore wind turbines.

Image and excerpts: Fotolia/Yauhen Suslo and The Engineer