Offshore Wind Turbine Repair Robot

Wind turbines provide an increasing share of European electricity production, but the costs of operating and maintaining the turbine blades have been neglected so far. Turbines have a life-time of 20-25 years, but e.g. the blade leading edge wears down in the harsh weather in a few years.

Todays’ state-of-the-art are manual repairs done by Rope Access Technicians hanging in ropes from the nacelle of the wind turbine. This method is inefficient, expensive, and involves hazardous working environments. Rope Robotics has invented and patented the world’s first and, so far, only robot for performing all the phases of wind turbine blade maintenance and repair without having people performing hazardous tasks from ropes. The robot is currently working on onshore turbines and by this project the robot is demonstrated on offshore turbines.