Drones in industry: technical challenges, practical benefits

What do turbine blades high above the ocean and the bowels of a cargo ship have in common? The inspection vital to keeping both safe and functioning can often be hazardous, the sites frequently inaccessible, and the operation always complex. So how can drones help? Technicians rappelling down vast blades on the open seas, checking the parts bit by bit; engineers crawling through cramped spaces where air is poor; ships losing time in dock while cranes are used to get engineers to the top of masts: these have been the traditional ways of checking for wear and tear on wind turbines and in ships. But robots provide a new way of approaching the problem. Here to chat about the industrial use of drones and robots are: The CEO of BladeInsight, the company behind the Windrone Zenith project, André Croft de Moura. André is interested in robotics and data solutions applied to renewable energy generation. He is joined by Alessandro Maccari, whose background is in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering. Alessandro is Research and Development director at RINA Services in Italy. He coordinated the ROBINS project and has been applying his expertise to the challenges posed by the use of autonomous vehicles in ship inspections. For more info on the projects featured, visit: https://europa.eu/!Vr8qxg