The ADBISOV (Advanced Blade Inspections from a Service Operation Vessel (SOV)) project is running smoothly. As a reminder this is an ESA (European Space Agency) funded project we lead in partnership with ORE Catapult. 

The project focuses on efficient offshore autonomous  blade inspections from SOVs, as we believe there is room for more efficient offshore inspections by aligning with other O&M activities. Removing the need for dedicated inspection vessels or extra vessel time, makes each inspection much cheaper and creates a realistic path from biennial to annual (or even more frequent) full-farm inspection.

It is focused on inspections for wind farms beyond 30 km distance from shore which currently represent more than 27 GW only in Europe.

For wind farm operators, more frequent inspection means earlier detection of damage and leading-edge erosion, protecting energy yield and avoiding costly blade failures. Satellite technology is what makes this work at sea: GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) with RTK (Real Time Kinematics) corrections gives the centimeter-level positioning needed for safe, repeatable flight close to turbine structures. LEO satellite communications move imagery to the cloud while the vessel is still working. There, AI-assisted analysis, reviewed by blade experts, produces inspection reports within a 48-hour target. 

SOV operators gain a differentiated service that needs no vessel modifications. 

O&M providers get timely, reliable damage data for planning repairs. 

The BDR (Baseline Design Review) meeting review took place in September and work packages within the project are progressing to schedule. We have identified many customer requirements from meetings with many relevant stakeholders (Owners and Operators and Manufacturers) across the offshore world 🌊

A big thank you to everyone who has taken part so far in the technical interviews. If you work in offshore wind and would like to feed in your requirements too, we would be glad to hear from you.

As the project moves on, we will have more news to share. For the moment we are still in the preliminary phase.

The project page on the ESA website is now live if you would like to learn more about the project https://business.esa.int/projects/adbisov,