Inuktun’s range of robotic equipment has literally reached new heights on a recent trip to France. The MaggHD™ magnetic crawler delivered a wind turbine inspection of an 80m (260ft) high tower.
By doing so, it added a credible and reliable alternative to traditional means of inspection (rope access, drones and ground-based photography).
Detecting blade defects and general condition monitoring of wind turbines are indeed major concerns for the wind power industry. Without regular inspection, owners risk reduced energy outputs resulting from deterioration or, worse, blade collapse. Regular asset integrity assessment with a robotic crawler saves time and money, not to mention the elimination of human risk.
The current trend in any energy sector is indeed to reduce to a minimum human intervention for obvious health & safety reasons which can rule out rope access. Drones can provide excellent HD close up filming but are more weather dependant and rely on the use of a UAV-qualified pilot. Photography using ground-based powerful zoom cameras also requires outsourcing as well as further defect calculations/software manipulation.
The MaggHD™ system is easy to set up and training is minimal. The crawler is placed on the tower at ground level where the tracks, lighting, camera and lasers are all controlled using a standard X-Box joystick.
The crawler’s six rare earth Neodymium strong magnets allow the inspection to be delivered even in wet, windy conditions.
The MaggHD™ offers real time video in full HD (1080p resolution) with 10X optical and 12X digital zoom on a 360°-degree continuous tilt camera head, as well as parallel laser lines for indicative measurements. Both welds and the blades can be successively observed in a swift and precise operation.
Inuktun’s ICON software provides intuitive control with built-in recording and still image capture, which makes simple work of post-inspection detailed reporting.
Brian Storie, managing director for Inuktun Europe Ltd: “Our crawler perfectly demonstrated its capabilities in performing this inspection. We believe that this highly versatile system will become a valuable resource for wind turbine inspections and many other applications.”