BladeBUG, working with Imperial College London and the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult, are seeking funding to develop and test an autonomous robot capable of carrying out inspection, maintenance and repair work on offshore wind turbines. While robots can greatly benefit society, their deployment outside the well-controlled environment of factories and labs remain a challenge. Indeed, engineers cannot foresee every situation that a robot will have to face because everysituation is different. One of the objectives of this proposal is to overcome this challenge by leveraging recent advances in Artificial Intelligence (Machine Learning) to enable robots to autonomously learn how to recover from unexpected situations, like mechanical damage and changes in the surface of a wind turbine blade. This project will cement the UK's market-leading position as the global leader in offshore wind by addressing a key missing element of the supply chain -- autonomous robotic inspection, maintenance and repair of offshore turbine blades. Furthermore, this innovation, to be manufactured in the North-East of England, will be attractive to a global market as nations seek to derive more of their energy from renewable sources.

In the last decade, the number of offshore wind turbines in the UK has doubled to over 2,000 active turbines, saving 29 megatonnes of CO₂ every year, and producing 10.4GW of power combined. The UK is aiming to raise this to 40GW by 2030\. As power requirements increase, so does the size of turbines and their distance from shore resulting in higher risk and cost of maintenance. Current wind turbines may have blades over 80 m long, and even larger wind turbines are in development. One of the primary issues that wind turbines face is erosion of the leading edge of the blade, due to high speeds at the tip of the blade. As wind turbines get larger, the blade tip speed increases, escalating erosion. Technicians using rope-access equipment are sent out to repair the damaged edges caused by this, by sanding and applying leading edge protection materials. However, more hazardous environments further from shore and on larger turbines will lead to greater risks to these technicians. This will also result in longer turbine downtime, and more costly repairs, reducing green energy production. Robotic repair solutions such as BladeBUG can improve safety by removing humans from this hazardous environment. In addition, use of robots and automation can reduce the cost of earlier stage repairs and productivity can be increased via preemptive maintenance before damage impacts performance. This also reduces turbine downtime, as fewer large scale repairs are needed. Repeatable, precise robotic actions will also improve repair efficiency. This project aims to develop a modular tool carrier and tool for sanding the leading edge of turbine blades, enabling the previously developed BladeBUG robot to carry out leading edge repair procedures. As a result of productivity and efficiency improvements, individual turbines will produce more energy throughout their lifetime, reducing the UK's reliance on fossil fuels as a source of energy. With the planned growth of the UK's wind sector, this will have an even greater effect in the future.

The UK leads the world in installed offshore wind capacity, and will need to increase from 9GW today to at least 75GW to reach the UK's net zero target by 2050\. This will push wind farms further offshore, entering deeper waters and operating in more extreme conditions. Key issues for operations and maintenance in the offshore wind sector are the safety of personnel and the costs involved in sending specialised technicians to perform individual tasks. Offshore wind turbines operate in harsh environments such as the North Sea. The tip speeds of wind turbine blades can exceed 200mph, allowing particulates in the air such as rain and dust to wear away the surface of a blade's leading edge, in a phenomenon known as leading edge erosion. This subsequently alters the blade's aerodynamic shape, reducing its efficiency and exposing it to further and more serious damage, thereby reducing its working life. In addition, the blades require periodic inspections to ensure safety critical features such as the lightning protection system and drain holes are functioning correctly and any other damage is identified and treated. Maintaining blades in the offshore wind sector is an expensive and challenging job where teams of highly-skilled rope access technicians are required to carry out these repairs. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has further highlighted the challenges of maintaining offshore wind turbines and other critical infrastructure with restrictions of personnel working in close proximity. BladeBUG has successfully proven the concept and developed a working prototype of their inspection, maintenance and repair robot. In this project, the team will continue its work with the ORE Catapult to validate the BladeBUG robotic system designed specifically to carry out a number of these detailed inspections and repetitive repairs of wind turbine blades in front of potential customers. The ability to perform these tasks remotely will increase the time spent by skilled rope access technicians on specialist repairs or larger upgrades to blades. The net result will allow both the repair of a greater number of blades over the same period, as well as an increased quality of repair across all turbines. The electrical output of windfarms will increase and therefore so will revenues to turbine owners and the environmental benefit in CO2 savings.

Offshore wind is one of the UK's biggest industrial successes of recent years. In the last decade, the number of offshore wind turbines in the UK has doubled to over 2,000 active turbines, saving 29 megatonnes of CO₂ every year, with 10.4GW of installed capacity. The UK is aiming to raise this capacity to 40GW by 2030 and 75GW by 2050\. As power requirements increase, so does the size of turbines and their distance from shore, resulting in more challenging and costly maintenance. The UK has a compelling Green Recovery opportunity; the Government's Offshore Wind Sector Deal targets a 60% increase in UK content at our offshore wind farms and a five-fold increase in exports. One of the primary issues that wind turbines face is the testing and re-torquing of offshore wind turbine bolts. Current practice requires technicians to scale wind turbines in hazardous conditions, manually re-tightening as many as 1,000 bolts per turbine. There are 10,429 wind turbines (offshore and onshore) in the UK, equating to an estimated 10.5 million bolts that are critical to the integrity of wind turbine structures. Having to use heavy duty hydraulic wrenches makes this mammoth task time-consuming and high-risk. The proposed EchoBoltBUG will combine two UK success stories, BladeBUG's robotic walking platform with the EchoBolt ultrasonic inspection device. Unmanned robotic solutions have the potential to make offshore work safer, more resilient and cost effective compared to traditional methods. This project aims to develop an unmanned walking platform that records the sound echoes within bolts, demonstrating exactly when a bolt needs re-tightening, with the potential to reduce the frequency of bolt maintenance significantly. This project will also explore the potential for new technology to automate the parallel measurement required if no ultrasonic reference readings exist. The UK Government is targeting a five-fold increase in exports from UK offshore wind suppliers (to £2.6 billion per year) by 2030\. Tackling climate change over the coming decades is one of the greatest challenges of our time and offerings such as EchoBoltBUG will be decisive in meeting net-zero targets across the world.

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"Offshore wind turbines operate in harsh and extreme environments such as the North Sea. As blades continue getting larger, their tip speeds can exceed 100m/s. At these speeds, any particulates in the air such as rain, dust, salt, insects, etc. can wear away the surface of a blade's leading edge, a phenomenon known as ""leading edge erosion"" (LEE). This, in turn, alters the blade's aerodynamic shape, affecting its efficiency and potentially exposing the blade to further and more serious damage, thereby reducing its working life. Whilst the extent and nature of contributing factors to LEE are not yet fully understood, it can be said that at some point in their lifespan, all wind turbine blades will suffer from some form or degree of LEE which will need to be addressed. Maintaining blades in the offshore wind sector is an expensive and dangerous job where, typically, highly skilled rope access technicians are required to scale down the blades to carry out leading edge repairs. Having successfully proven the concept in Phase 1 of the Innovate UK funding round, in this project, BladeBug Limited will continue its work with the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult to develop, build and test a complete, walking robotic system designed specifically to carry out a number of these detailed inspections and repetitive repairs on the leading edges of wind turbine blades. The ability to perform these tasks remotely will free up time of skilled rope access technicians to undertake specialist repairs or upgrades to blades that only they can do. More blades could then be inspected and treated in the same time frames, maximising the electrical output of the turbines and, as a result, increasing revenues to turbine owners as well as the environmental benefit to everyone in CO2 savings."

Offshore wind turbines operate in harsh and extreme environments such as the North Sea. As blades continue getting larger, their tip speeds can exceed 100m/s. At these speeds, any particulates in the air such as rain, dust, salt, inspects etc. can wear away the surface of the blade's leading edge, a phenomenon known as leading edge erosion. This, in turn, alters the aerodynamic shape of the blade, affecting the efficiency AND potentially exposing the blade to further and more serious damage, thereby reducing the life of the blade. Whilst the mechanisms that cause leading edge erosion are not yet fully understood, it can be said that at some point, ALL wind turbine blades will suffer from some form or degree of leading edge erosion during their life, which will need to be addressed. Maintaining blades in the offshore wind sector is an expensive and dangerous job. Typically, highly skilled rope access technicians have to scale down the blades to carry out leading edge repairs. This project aims to take the first steps of developing a robotic device to carry out a number of these detailed inspections and repetitive repairs on the leading edges of blades, freeing up the time of the skilled rope access technicians, enabling them to perform specialist repairs or upgrades to blades only they can do. This would enable more blades to be inspected and treated, maximising the electrical output of the turbines that in turn benefit the owner with increased revenues, maximise the CO2 savings that everybody benefit from and increasing the security of electrical supply for the end users.