Robotic Systems for the Inspection of Offshore Wind Farms

The remote inspection and asset management of offshore wind farms and their connection to shore, is an industry which will be worth up to £2 billion annually by 2025 in the UK alone. 80% to 90% of the cost of offshore Operation and Maintenance according to the Crown Estate is generated by access requirements: such as the need to get engineers and technicians to remote sites to evaluate a problem and decide what action to undertake. Such inspection takes place in a remote and hazardous environment and requires highly trained personnel, of which there is likely to be a shortage in coming years. This project will investigate the use of robotic systems for the inspection of offshore assets. A specific use case of the inspection of a live HVDC sub-station will be used to investigate autonomous mission planning and coordination of multiple robots operating in a dark, GPS denied environments.