The robots leading the offshore renewables revolution
Game-Changer: BladeBUG Ltd, London
Terrain: Offshore wind farm blades, which are 100m long plus and 100 metres above the sea
Special Powers:
- Ability to crawl on blades using suction powered feet and ‘sense’ surfaces
- Ultrasonic non-destructive testing to find cracks, erosion and fissures
- Localised mapping of surfaces
- Repairing damage to blades by painting on new composite layers
Objectives:
- Save the wind industry 30% on its inspection and maintenance costs
- Allow for pre-emptive inspections by having robots resident on site
- Grow the BladeBUG microbusiness into a global technology provider
BladeBUG 2 is a £1 million project with funding from Innovate UK which brings together BladeBUG Limited and ORE Catapult
Game-Changer: InnoTecUK, Cambridge
- Non-destructive ultrasonic testing for corrosion, H2S gas build-up, welding fatigue and scour (erosion of sediment around foundations)
- Novel adhesion technologies
- Cleaning system for removing biofouling
- Big data knowledge management system
- Move a UK business into the lead of a global monopile inspection market that will be worth £81 million by 2022, creating 200 new jobs
- Send robots into hazardous sub-sea conditions rather than human divers
- Save the offshore wind industry £4 million per turbine over its lifetime
Game-Changer: Rovco, Bristol
Robot: SubSLAM X1
- High resolution 3D point clouds of subsea objects with millimetric precision
- Stereo camera to recreate 3D reconstructions of subsea scenes and structures
- Remotely operated or works autonomously
- Reduce cost of subsea inspections by 80%
- Grow an innovative UK SME to corner a £20 million annual export market, creating 70 highly-skilled jobs
Game-Changer: HydroSurv, Exeter
- Intelligent navigation and collision avoidance technologies
- Long-range radar and short-range machine vision
- Hydro-acoustic and optical sensors
- Reduce the cost of surveys and inspections at sea by more than 60%
- Provide the option of a lightweight autonomous vessel suitable for shallow waters
- Reduce environmental impact by having no direct air emissions
- Provide a route to market for microbusiness HydroSurv
Game-Changer: MIMRee
MIMRee (Multi-Platform Inspection, Maintenance and Repair in Extreme Environments) is an ambitious project that will bring together a chain of robotic systems for full-scale missions to offshore wind farms. It is a £4.2 million investment by Innovate UK that will see drones, robotic vessels and robot repairers work together using NASA-inspired mission planning software:
MIMRee is a £4.2 million project funded by Innovate UK with the participation of Plant Integrity, ORE Catapult, Royal Holloway – The University of London, Royal College of Art (RCA), Thales, University of Manchester, University of Bristol, Wootzano Ltd