Drones used for wind tower inspections
A bit about Drones (From LinkedIn)
A lot has been happening in the drone industry, and a lot has to do with Aerial photography. It has been proven that these small drones can help people shoot astounding photographs and videos.A lot of these consumer drones like 3DR Solo , DJI Phantom,etc available today can let you carry small cameras like Gopro and advanced point and shoot cameras from sony, canon etc. They are already being used for topographic surveying, industrial inspections, remote sensing, etc. Industries like Mining, Agriculture, Oil and Gas, Renewable energy are already figuring out how it can be used to replace some of their old techniques and extract more data out of them.
One such case is Wind Turbine Blade Inspection
Windmill inspection using Drones is a growing trend where a lot of companies are using this technology as it is cost effective,quicker and safer.
General techniques that were being used:-
- Man basket or rope climbing : Obviously it is time consuming,weather dependent ,big down time also has risks involved.
Advantages of using a Drone :
- A Turbine can be inspected within an hour or faster depending upon the weather conditions. This greatly reduced the down time for the company owning the turbine, thus saving them money.
- Also photographs can be taken up close with the drones carrying high resolution cameras.
- The photographs can later be processed for extracting more information that is not so obvious when viewed as it is.
- Minimum five Turbines can be inspected in detail in a day with one team considering favorable weather conditions.
We may see drones take over the inspections on a large scale!
