Shearios demonstrates its robotic climber for wind turbine blades inspection

Shearios is a Horizon 2020 research project developing a robotic climber able to inspect wind turbine blades automatically and remotely. This could save testing service provider 1.055 € per wind turbine inspection and payback of the initial investment of the project after 152 inspections. The wind farm operator will save more than 1 full day per wind turbine inspection, because of the reduced inspection time, which directly translates to less revenue lost due to idle wind turbines.

A deployment platform ascends on the wind turbine tower and deploys the robotic climber on the base of the blade. The climber then moves on the blade by means of air-suction and carries out inspection with a shearography kit on a cantilever. This has been demonstrated in lab thanks to the strong cooperation of all partners. The consortium still needs to improve the systems but this result is more than satisfying!