BEIJING, June 30 (Xinhua) -- Along the northeastern coast of Brazil, waves crash against the shore and sea breezes blow, creating a picturesque coastline dotted with towering wind turbines. On the vast land of Brazil, wind farms are concentrated in the northeast and southeast, boasting incredible wind power potential.
In the process of converting wind into electricity, wind turbine blades are essential components. However, long-term operations can easily lead to wear and aging of the blades, requiring regular inspection and maintenance to avoid accidents. Chinese AI company Clobotics, headquartered in Shanghai, has been cooperating with ArthWind, a Brazilian operation and maintenance provider, since 2020 to bring intelligent wind turbine blade inspection technology to the Brazilian plateau.
The photo shows a Clobotics intelligent drone at work. (Provided by Clobotics)
Protecting Worker Safety, Promoting Intelligent Operations
Traditional wind turbine inspections are primarily conducted manually, placing a significant burden on workers. This is especially challenging in Brazil's distinct wet and dry seasons. In both the rainy wet season and the scorching dry season, each inspection is a physical and mental test for the workers. "The temperature inside the wind turbines often exceeds 40 degrees Celsius," explained a Clobotics hardware product manager. "After working inside, inspection workers come out drenched in sweat, and water will come out if you twist their clothes."
"Thank goodness! Someone is finally addressing this issue!" Jose, a veteran inspector at ArthWind, exclaimed upon hearing about the collaboration with Clobotics. "Servicing these giant turbines is fascinating, but climbing dozens of meters up the tower with a safety harness is also extremely dangerous. I'm thrilled to know about the cooperation with Clobotics."
Silva, Jose's colleague and friend, is responsible for technical training. She shared Jose's excitement about Clobotics' arrival and was overjoyed that her friend no longer had to face such high risks. "Not just Jose, anyone who has witnessed manual inspection firsthand would feel the same way," she said. "Many inspectors have jokingly recounted their fear and even trembling legs during their first inspection. It's a job that demands immense courage."
The photo shows inspectors working on a wind turbine in Brazil. (Provided by Clobotics)
Recognizing the drawbacks of traditional inspection methods, Clobotics has developed an intelligent maintenance solution that offers significant advantages over semi-autonomous drone inspections. "With traditional semi-autonomous drone inspections, drone pilots need to perform calibration a day in advance and conduct test flights before actual operations. During test flights, they must fly multiple routes to ensure the clarity and completeness of photo capture, which is both time-consuming and demanding for pilot expertise," said a Clobotics hardware product manager. "Furthermore, pilots must closely monitor the screen and manually adjust the drone's flight path throughout the inspection process."
Clobotics' expertise in both on-site data collection and back-end processing empowers its autonomous inspection system to enable drone self-flight. Leveraging computer vision, machine learning and other cutting-edge technologies, the system integrates data acquisition, image recognition, cloud-based big data processing and analysis to deliver a comprehensive, expert-level wind power industry intelligent maintenance solution. This is why Clobotics stood out among numerous competitors and secured a partnership with ArthWind. Armando Costa Rego, CEO of ArthWind, expressed his confidence that their collaboration will lead to groundbreaking advancements in wind turbine operation and maintenance.
"Ace Trio" for Wind Turbine Blade Inspection Serving Brazil
In its efforts to provide comprehensive technical support to Brazil, Clobotics has deployed its self-developed "Ace Trio" of blade inspection solutions. This trio comprises the "Clobotics Boyun Wind Turbine Blade Intelligent Inspection System," the KIWI inspection robot, and the Clobotics Drone Wind Turbine Blade Resistance Testing Solution.
The "Clobotics Boyun Wind Turbine Blade Intelligent Inspection System" has two parts: the drone-based inspection system IBIS and the blade digital management platform IRIS. The drone-based IBIS can automatically capture the position of the wind turbine and plan the inspection path, which can realize 100% autonomous flight of the drone, and only 15 to 25 minutes will be needed to complete the intelligent inspection of each wind turbine. The system can also provide clear and complete image data after the inspection, and accurately identify the pattern and size of any possible defect. IRIS, a digital management platform, intelligently identifies the image data collected by the drones' automatic inspection, and provides a comprehensive inspection report including the original data and images, defect level, as well as inspection and maintenance recommendations.
The KIWI robots play an important role in the internal inspection of wind turbine blades. They can generate images of higher quality and reach a detection depth of more than two-thirds of the blade length, making it easy to reach locations that cannot be reached by manual inspections and greatly reducing the time to enter a single blade. The existence of KIWI makes it no longer necessary for inspectors such as Jose to enter the blade for internal inspection, which greatly ensures the safety of inspection workers.
The photo shows a KIWI robot performing an internal inspection inside the blades of a wind turbine. (Provided by Clobotics)
The Clobotics Drone Wind Turbine Blade Resistance Testing Solution employs a flashpoint measurement method, enabling a single shutdown of the wind turbine during the entire lightning path resistance test without any specific requirements for the shutdown angle. Within 30 minutes, it can accurately measure the resistance values of each flashpoint on all three blades with a precision of milliohms.
The trio of Clobotics solutions has garnered widespread acclaim in Brazil. This success can be attributed not only to the innovative technology but also to the dedication and responsibility of Clobotics' on-site personnel. To ensure the smooth progress of the collaboration, Clobotics' hardware product manager and engineer Ke Liang has been stationed in Brazil for a long time. During his occasional moments of leisure, he often strolls along the coastline, gazing at the expansive shoreline and the towering "windmills" while feeling the refreshing sea breeze. He said he has no regrets about leaving his homeland for technical collaboration. "When you realize that so many wind turbine blade inspections in Brazil rely on Clobotics' technology, it's a real source of pride."
Beyond Brazil, Clobotics has established partnerships with wind farms of varying sizes and locations in Denmark, the United States, Canada, Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand, Greece, Romania, Portugal and Italy. Its services now span 29 countries and regions, with over 80,000 wind turbine inspections conducted worldwide. By "sharpening the blade at home before using it abroad," Clobotics is committed to benefiting more corners of the globe with its expertise in AI and the wind power sector. (Zhai Shurui)
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