Thrust-vectoring Drone Delivery and Remote Operation of a Wind Turbine Blade Autonomous Repair Manipulator (VECTARM)

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The project demonstrates a novel robotic system for the autonomous maintenance and repair of wind turbine blades. It involves the integration of an autonomous, patent-pending blade repair manipulator arm, with a thrust-vectoring flying drone platform to form the VECTARM system. The system is designed to be launched in the vicinity of the wind turbine - from a boat in the case of offshore wind turbines. It then flies and anchors itself to the blades where it performs the maintenance and repair operations, before flying back to its launch base. The project culminates with a demonstration flight on a vertically-hung wind turbine blade where the system then deploys its autonomous arm and performs repair functions.There is a strong and growing market demand for such a system. Repair and maintenance operations are currently performed by rope-access technicians, which is costly in terms of deployment and turbine downtime, and carries very significant health and safety risks. These operations are forecast to represent a £ 1.1 billion market in the UK alone by 2026, and USD 19.4 billion globally.The VECTARM system is a much lower cost IMR solution that removes humans from these extreme work environments and minimises the turbine downtime, all in a single, integrated system that avoids multiple interoperating robotic platforms (flying and payload deployment, crawling, robotic repair system), reducing the chances of coordination failure among the various platforms.The project enables the commercialisation of the technology, which will contribute to improving the overall generation ef?ciency of offshore wind, helping reduce the cost of wind energy whilst securing this expertise for the UK.