Drones: technical challenges, practical benefits
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CORDIScovery podcast- Episode #15 - Drones: technical challenges, practical benefits
This is an AI transcription.
00:00:10:05 - 00:00:16:06
Abigail Acton
This is CORDIScovery.
00:00:16:08 - 00:00:38:19
Abigail Acton
Hello. Welcome to this episode of CORDIScovery With me, Abigail Acton. Let's talk about the industrial use of drones, the technical challenges and the practical benefits. The numbers of those vast turbines off some of our shores are set to increase as we step up the drive to increase renewable sources of energy. But who checks the blades to make sure they're holding up to the impact of weather and wear. drones can save people.
00:00:38:19 - 00:01:05:00
Abigail Acton
The hazardous task of manual inspection, both over the open sea and in it. If you're checking the structural integrity of a ship, what is the benefit of using drones, crawlers and autonomous devices instead of engineers and mechanics? Can real time sensing lead to quicker decision making and less downtime? It's a good job. I have two guests whose projects have been supported by the EU Horizon 2020 program who are perfectly placed to answer these and other questions.
00:01:05:06 - 00:01:23:05
Abigail Acton
Welcome to CEO of Blade site André Croft de Moura is interested in robotics and data solutions applied to renewable energy generation with his background in marine biology and oceanography. Andre's current focus is on how to improve the structural analysis of blades on offshore wind turbines. Welcome, Andre.
00:01:23:10 - 00:01:25:12
André Croft de Moura
Thank you very much, Abigail. Thank you for the invite.
00:01:25:16 - 00:01:42:13
Abigail Acton
Super nice to have you with us. Alessandro Maccari whose background is in naval architecture and Marine engineering, is research and development director at Rena Services in Italy. Alessandro has been applying his expertise to the challenges posed by the use of autonomous vehicles in ship inspections. Hello, Alessandro.
00:01:42:15 - 00:01:44:17
Alessandro Maccari
Hello. Thank you.
00:01:44:19 - 00:02:02:11
Abigail Acton
You're very welcome. Andre, let's move to you. Your project, Windrone Zenith has been working on developing completely autonomous drones that can inspect all three blades on wind turbines. And you're focusing on offshore wind farms. Can you tell me the main technical challenges that confronted you with this?
00:02:02:13 - 00:02:44:22
André Croft de Moura
Absolutely. So in the field of robotics, specifically for autonomy, what we're trying to do is to enable machines to have an accurate understanding of their environment and being able to react to it in real time. So as people, we are used to using our eyes or perception or feel to navigate the world in a way that is very intuitive to us, we don't have to think about it, and our brain does an amazing job at processing this in real time, which means that we don't fall over objects.
00:02:44:22 - 00:03:14:21
André Croft de Moura
We're in balance and we usually get to where we try to go. Now, when we try to pass on some of these abilities on to robots, the biggest challenge is can we empower them to do specific tasks in a repeatable, robust and safe way? And over the past 10 to 15 years, the advancements in sensors have been immense.
00:03:14:23 - 00:03:51:19
André Croft de Moura
And so what this means is that sensors such as light hours and cameras and depth cameras have meant that we now have the ability to give processing units information, enabling them to react in real time. And this is very important because especially in real world environments and outside, you don't have time. Lag is a is a very big challenge, right, Because you have to be able to carry out these operations in a in a very swift way.
00:03:51:21 - 00:03:58:24
André Croft de Moura
And with that, I would bring the second big component, which is processing power has increased immensely.
00:03:59:01 - 00:04:05:24
Abigail Acton
So that means that the information that you're getting back from the devices you can get, you can you can process it faster and more in-depth, as it were.
00:04:06:01 - 00:04:29:23
André Croft de Moura
Correct. So if the sensors are the eyes and the nose of the robots and the ears, then the brain power, which is how quickly we can process that information is critical. And this is even more so for drones, because in this case, the processing units are on the drones and wait on drones are a critical factor because they affect the flight time.
00:04:30:00 - 00:04:50:23
André Croft de Moura
So we're able to pack more and more processing power in smaller and lighter packages and so bring all of this together in a way that works robust and repeatedly has been the overarching challenge that we've been bringing together on the robotics side.
00:04:51:00 - 00:05:07:11
Abigail Acton
Right. And I guess for you, with your interest in in in blade structural analysis and reporting of. Sure, one of the challenges has been able to have a device that can actually inspect all three blades rather than just a couple. I mean, because that takes more time, right? I know that was one of your goals.
00:05:07:11 - 00:05:32:23
André Croft de Moura
Yes. So we had actually we've been in the market of Blade inspections since 2016, but we were inspecting one blade at a time. Right. Blade had to be in a predetermined position. And this position was vertical. So in practical terms, what this means is that we were actually operating in a 2D environment because we could make very good assumptions about what this object that we were inspecting was.
00:05:33:00 - 00:05:54:03
André Croft de Moura
And going from there to inspecting the three blades means that the other blades are off at an angle, which in turn means that our perception of the world now needs to be in 3D. So it's actually one order of magnitude more complex to be navigating in a 3D environment rather than a 2D environment. We can see that in computer games, etc..
00:05:54:09 - 00:05:55:20
Abigail Acton
Yeah. And the duration of flight.
00:05:55:23 - 00:05:56:12
André Croft de Moura
Correct.
00:05:56:16 - 00:06:14:21
Abigail Acton
I mean, how did you get around that? Because as you were just saying, it's it's vitally important that they're not carrying much of a load because that will impact on the flight time, as you just said. I mean, inspecting three blades in 3D, as you've just described, must be much, much more time consuming. Is it three times more time consuming or is it actually even more than the three times?
00:06:14:22 - 00:06:19:03
André Croft de Moura
No, it is slightly less because you can save on the takeoff and landing time.
00:06:19:04 - 00:06:20:17
Abigail Acton
Yes, of course they're out there.
00:06:20:17 - 00:06:47:13
André Croft de Moura
Yeah, exactly. Our approach has been we actually don't develop the drone itself. The drone is off the shelf. What we do is we've developed a payload that we attach to the drone, enabling it, taking over its decision making and enabling it to do this very specific operation. So the answer to your question is two fold is, on one hand, we have to select from the market a drone that has the ability to fly the time that we needed to.
00:06:47:19 - 00:07:03:18
André Croft de Moura
And secondly, we have to make these packages as small and as light as possible. Small helps with it being aerodynamic and therefore having less resistance to the wind. And obviously the weight will have a direct impact on the flight time as well.
00:07:03:24 - 00:07:13:12
Abigail Acton
And how long is it taking you to get to the stage where you now actually do have the package, as you call it, the technology that will actually inspect all three blades?
00:07:13:14 - 00:07:37:08
André Croft de Moura
So we started the company started in 2015, and it took us to 2017 to be able to have our first operating prototype to do the One Blade. And our project kicked off in 2019. And let's say that there's the 3D, although it's an order of magnitude more complex, it does build on some of the building blocks that we used in the first one.
00:07:37:08 - 00:07:43:11
André Croft de Moura
So really we're at the culmination of around seven years of development to get to the point where we are today.
00:07:43:11 - 00:07:45:12
Abigail Acton
Right. Evolutionary process, basically.
00:07:45:13 - 00:07:53:03
André Croft de Moura
Exactly. But the the whole tree blade was actually developed over the course of the wind drones at its project.
00:07:53:05 - 00:08:06:18
Abigail Acton
Right. I mean, that sounds like an an enormous amount of of work, very sort of intense activity to try and and get to where you are now. What drives you and your team? What was the motivation to try and and and and develop such a technology.
00:08:06:20 - 00:08:51:21
André Croft de Moura
So I am the I am the founder of the company. And the goal behind this was it was crystal clear and this comes from my understanding that making renewable energy ubiquitous is a priority for mankind. And the biggest single driver of that is to make renewable energy cheaper. If we can make the levelized cost of energy, of renewable energy as cheap and especially cheaper than existing carbon sources, then we don't need to use environmental factors to convince the big decision makers to move in that direction.
00:08:51:23 - 00:09:23:11
André Croft de Moura
All the economic incentives align with the environmental ones and that is why I thought that wind energy in particular is very well suited to fill this gap. In fact, wind energy is projected to become the world's largest source of energy by 2050. And and we're talking about a distributed source of energy, right? We're talking about millions of turbines across several countries and continents having to be continuously maintained individually.
00:09:23:13 - 00:10:04:17
André Croft de Moura
And so this implies a scaling of servicing and inspection and monitoring to pretty much an unprecedented scale. And what I found was that many of the existing methods of several aspects of a wind turbine were not optimized. And Blades was, for me, an obvious one, because blades were being inspected either through rope work, which implies one or two technicians roping off, rappelling off a blade and using a little hammer and a little point and shoot camera to inspect it, which is dangerous, expensive and takes a long time.
00:10:04:17 - 00:10:22:18
André Croft de Moura
And here this time component I'd like to bring back to the drone because a turbine exists to run to generate electricity. So the longer that it is not running, the more expensive energy that you're producing when it is running on a yearly on a yearly basis is more expensive, right? So time is an important element in wind.
00:10:22:23 - 00:10:29:05
Abigail Acton
Do you have any idea how much time is actually lost through inspection processes and repairs?
00:10:29:07 - 00:10:48:18
André Croft de Moura
Yes. So mostly on the inspection, because that's where we focus on. You can inspect between one and two turbines a day. So you're talking about 4 to 6 hours per turbine if you're doing road work, If on another hand you do this with a drone, I mean a three blade solution, we're targeting 22 minutes per turbine.
00:10:48:19 - 00:10:50:10
Abigail Acton
Goodness me. That's a huge difference.
00:10:50:12 - 00:10:52:02
André Croft de Moura
Exactly.
00:10:52:04 - 00:11:12:03
Abigail Acton
So that's a real saving of downtime. Yeah. No, Fabulous. Very, very interesting. And I mean, this is this is obviously incredibly, clearly compelling. And anyone listening must be really excited to hear about about this concept. But are you seeing interest from operators themselves? What's actually happening in terms of the market? Your prototype stage, Is anyone taking it up, wanting to go further?
00:11:12:05 - 00:11:38:22
André Croft de Moura
It's very funny that you ask this because we we felt that since the very beginning, we've we've been pushing the industry's boundaries. So for the first couple of years, everyone of the market really wasn't ready for what we were doing, and nobody believed that drones would actually replace this. It must be said that overall many industries, but wind, which I know they're slow, they're slow, slowly evolving industries.
00:11:38:22 - 00:12:00:22
André Croft de Moura
And so change has a cost. And the adoption of new solutions usually takes some time. So we had to convince the market that drones could do this. And today drones are the de facto way of doing inspections. Brilliant. So the uptake took some time and now it is the most common way. So we've seen a lot of interest in the solution.
00:12:01:02 - 00:12:13:23
Abigail Acton
that's fantastic. That's excellent. I'm really glad to hear that. Alessandro, let me bring you in here. You're you're using drones in a similar sort of way, but in a very different context. Would you have any comments to make to Andre?
00:12:14:00 - 00:12:48:11
Alessandro Maccari
Yes. The question I have on the use of the drones, especially on this space, on the wind farm, is the reliability of the information taken. And if the inspection bodies and administration or legal entities to have to verify the compliance of the inspection are easily using the these data or there is a regulatory barrier to be overcome in the in using drones for the remote inspection.
00:12:48:15 - 00:13:18:04
André Croft de Moura
Thank you for the question, Alessandro. I think that's a very poignant one. So in the industry where we operate, there is no global standardized way of how inspections need to be carried out or a threshold for that acceptance. From a regulatory aspect, what exists are self-imposed quality standards from the different manufacturers and from different clients. Now, this isn't universally true.
00:13:18:06 - 00:13:58:04
André Croft de Moura
Germany has mandatory statutory inspections. France has just enforced them. So there is an industry push towards trying to make these inspections much more standardized. I have to say that it is a challenge. So today in Germany, drones are not accepted for visual inspections of blades and this comes to one of my previous points of there needing to be a modernization and a push towards accepting these new methods of inspection because everyone benefits instead of increasing costs to the industry.
00:13:58:06 - 00:14:46:07
André Croft de Moura
However, we can tune quality, we can tune sensors, and we are giving defect location and resolution, which we believe is much higher than what an inspector can do on the blade, which is one of the big advantages, I think, of a drone. So instead of having someone on on a blade that will register what he wants to register and can register on that day, and this will vary per person, per day, per site, per blade, We capture the full surface, which means that we can share this information between many inspectors have many different and it makes information much more accountable, comparable and takes me to my last point, which is this is all to push
00:14:46:07 - 00:14:49:18
André Croft de Moura
the industry towards making data driven decisions.
00:14:49:22 - 00:15:08:04
Abigail Acton
Alessandra I think that that probably really strikes a note with you because I know that your project, the Robin's project, has made the use of crawlers and drones more viable for ship inspection. And you passionately believe that these tools are the way forward for the industry. Thank you, Andre, but I'm just going to turn to Alessandro for now.
00:15:08:09 - 00:15:14:08
Abigail Acton
What are the steps involved in ship inspection? Alessandro Currently, and what are the drawbacks of those more traditional methods?
00:15:14:10 - 00:16:00:02
Alessandro Maccari
Yes, well, close inspection classifications or site. The inspection and surveys on ships have the primary goal of confirm if a ship or the structures of a ship and all of the components, I mean, the mechanical, electrical components are fit for purpose or contain defects such as corrosion or cracking, buckling or coating breakdown. Some of the inspections are required to verify the vessel's condition with close up surveys, and this is valid for, say, for all ship types, including naval vessels, but also fixed and mobile offshore units.
00:16:00:02 - 00:16:32:13
Alessandro Maccari
And these are the few where probably we are somewhat somehow closer to the application of the wind farms. So there are a variety of possible inspections on board. You may have the inspection of uppermost elements like the top of the masts or cranes that you have on specific cargo ships, and the top part of the front is the exhausts, but also radars and communication equipment.
00:16:32:15 - 00:16:56:21
Alessandro Maccari
But on the other hand, that you have also the the need to go inside confined spaces and the confined space is also could be dangerous. Space is or how to reach could be tanks or ballast spaces that contain ballast water, seawater, void spaces, but also of tanks and cargo holds. Yes.
00:16:56:21 - 00:17:12:08
Abigail Acton
So that the environments are diverse and and range extremely from the exposed to the to the to the constraint. But I would I'm curious to know about is could you tell us a little bit about the status quo before the use of drones? In other words, what are the problems with using people? Why can't we just carry on using people?
00:17:12:14 - 00:17:42:19
Alessandro Maccari
Well, we will continue using people, but in a different way. In the last five years, the remote inspection have multiplied. That would say exponentially, also boosted by the impact of COVID 19 and the once upon a time, I could say that the Marine surveyors had to go physically on board and the access to the areas where the station has to be carried out.
00:17:42:21 - 00:17:53:12
Alessandro Maccari
And this requires a lot of travel preparation. That is a problem of time and cost because we have to prepare the spaces where the human being have to enter.
00:17:53:17 - 00:17:55:14
Abigail Acton
And I guess it could be hazardous sometimes.
00:17:55:17 - 00:18:29:23
Alessandro Maccari
It could well be. Imagine you have to inspect, for instance, that the cargo holds of a tanker or a ship that is carrying chemical product. So you have to open the spaces, you have ventilate, you have to check that the atmosphere can breathe the or prevent any explosion problem or even prepare some very specific equipment for the surveillance like breathing apparatus and special protective equipment to go inside the specific spaces.
00:18:29:23 - 00:18:57:09
Alessandro Maccari
Right. So you may need scaffolding, you may need additional equipment in order to reach the areas that nobody cannot be reached or simply standing back or of climbing up the mast. So you can also imagine that the safety and security problem that you have at the moment, but there is a physical effort also inside that in these kind of traditional inspection.
00:18:57:10 - 00:19:20:10
Abigail Acton
Right. So that's clear then, that there are obviously real drawbacks, too, to to just using people. Thanks for explaining that. So then the benefit of carrying these inspections out autonomously is is evident. But how can a drone or a crawler identify the extent of an issue? For example, how can a drone verify the departure of rust is superficially or or is actually in fact structurally problematic?
00:19:20:10 - 00:19:22:18
Abigail Acton
Can you tell us a little bit more about the sensors?
00:19:22:20 - 00:20:03:23
Alessandro Maccari
First of all, the drone has to reach that right position. And if it is a single point like double the master or a single spot, the inside the ship, that is pretty easy. But normally we have to also scan a very large surface, like the internal part of a tank or a cargo hold. So the drone or the crawler also has to follow a specific factor and that in order to scan completely and systematically the surface and this requires some preparation and and also some pre-planned piloting of the equipment.
00:20:04:00 - 00:20:42:19
Alessandro Maccari
Then, of course, you have to detect if there is a just a spot of roster, if it is something dirty sport or you have a much wider corrosion problem. So you'll need a very high quality video footage for sure, a 4K definition for the footage, and also the possibility to map exact where the defect is located and the drones or flying robots do not normally land on the surface and cannot get samples.
00:20:42:21 - 00:21:14:24
Alessandro Maccari
This is the reason why, in addition to drones, we have also developed specific problems that are physically climbing, are attached with magnetic devices to the steel structure of the ship and are able also to to test the probe and even get some samples of the of the paint of the raster and do basically the same job that the human being could carry out with the inside.
00:21:14:24 - 00:21:16:22
Alessandro Maccari
The whole of a ship.
00:21:17:00 - 00:21:39:12
Abigail Acton
Absolutely. But also, as Andre says, without the subjectivity that a human brings to the task in a more objective way, because of course, it's a machine, not a human. So it's it's it's following the program that you, you, you, you placed on it rather than the that the inclination that a human might have. Because as Andre was pointing out and I think it makes sense that each engineer or each technician brings their own perspective to a task.
00:21:39:13 - 00:21:42:15
Abigail Acton
So you get rid of the subjectivity, which I imagine is useful.
00:21:42:15 - 00:22:29:18
Alessandro Maccari
No? Well, subjectivity is a pros and cons because a very expert, they can immediately pinpoint or detect where you have the troubles and go straight there for a machine that we may use a machine learning and artificial intelligence in order to teach the robot on how to manage the inspection, to have some scrutiny of the difficult areas and concentrate also the number of the spots and the accuracy of the controls in the area that would require the maximum attention.
00:22:29:20 - 00:22:56:02
Alessandro Maccari
This is the reason why the drones and the crawlers for shipping space have to be very specific, not only in terms of reaching the point of interest, but also for the contact next to measurements. And before the measurement in global coordinates in order to be able then to to go straight there to to to start the repair work right.
00:22:56:06 - 00:22:58:16
Abigail Acton
And how does this data get shared?
00:22:58:18 - 00:23:27:02
Alessandro Maccari
So first of all, you need the possibility to connect the Internet to the ship, to the rest of the world. And this is a big advantage. Managing the big data, of course, is the future and the big data and the possibility to share in real time the information we the any office around the world, the possibility to involve the key experts wherever they are.
00:23:27:04 - 00:23:59:04
Alessandro Maccari
This is an incredible advantage because basically on board you may have just one surveyor with a lot of experience able to manage all that complex situation that you may find on board. But if you get the data and can send that the data in real time wherever it needs, so you may have the top expert in the world that would be immediately available to process and to find the possible way forward.
00:23:59:04 - 00:24:25:22
Alessandro Maccari
And basically, if you need to have an action done on board or if you can maybe wait a little longer to have the repair, work it down the during one of these scheduled stops of the ship. And this is also of paramount importance in case of accidents where you can have immediate understanding of the situation on board and take the appropriate action.
00:24:25:23 - 00:24:46:20
Abigail Acton
Yeah. So I mean, this again, it sounds it sounds so clearly advantageous rather like Andre's as well. I mean, it's it's obviously the way forward. But are you having problems with regulators? It's a question I posed to Andre as well. How is industry taking this up and are regulators embracing it or are you having a problem trying to get your disruptive technology accepted by the status quo?
00:24:46:20 - 00:25:19:05
Alessandro Maccari
Well, the technology is giving a lot of opportunities, but we have a lot of barriers still to be removed to it, to adopt that these robotics and autonomous system inspection for for ship safety, the data collected during the inspection, we know that can be securely acquired that be to maintain and use that but the regulatory framework is not fully ready to accept that.
00:25:19:07 - 00:25:56:04
Alessandro Maccari
It is just a matter of miseducation. We have to use the technology to renew to use technology to eliminate some bureaucracy and convince specifically like administration, that the data acquired we had that the use of drones are as effective as the human surveyor in finding the right elements.
00:25:56:04 - 00:26:07:24
Abigail Acton
Yes. Yes. And so this is where I'd like to bring Andre back in, actually. So how do you feel about the future with regards to regulation? Do you think that it's around the corner or do you think that that's going to be a struggle?
00:26:08:01 - 00:26:39:13
André Croft de Moura
My understanding is that this is aa2 way a two way push. So on one hand, we need regulators to have the openness and the willingness to accept that there are overarching benefits if we can introduce more efficient tools, this will make the sectors in themselves more competitive, more streamlined. And secondly, I do think that the burden of proof is clearly on our side.
00:26:39:15 - 00:27:04:06
André Croft de Moura
So we are the ones that are changing the status quo. We have to prove the efficiency, we have to prove the benefits, and we have to do so in a consistent manner that brings this into the brings the right entities into the conversation. And we understand these industries have operated for many decades. They are used to doing things in a certain way.
00:27:04:08 - 00:27:29:03
André Croft de Moura
And so it has to be our persistence and our data that has to be able to to to push it in the right direction. So it's the balance between these two things. But no matter how much we do this, if there is no openness and there is no ability to adapt and to change from the regulatory, then it'll be it'll be too long a battle and the problem here is that this might stifle innovation, right?
00:27:29:03 - 00:27:32:12
André Croft de Moura
Because we need the market to be there for us to offer our services.
00:27:32:16 - 00:27:53:13
Abigail Acton
Of course. Yeah. And Alessandra, I mean, you the ROBINS project, which was your project that you were involved with and also had part of its goal to, to streamline acceptance and, and regulation. How did that part go? We were working, I think, with regulators a little, weren't you, to try and to make things easier. Smooth bottlenecks.
00:27:53:13 - 00:28:26:23
Alessandro Maccari
Yes, I'm very glad that the during the project in June 2020, we performed that were the first the statutory and plus survey by using live streaming remote technology is on a by carrier in operation and after is a remote survey. The saga administration was Liberia that also attended that The survey remotely authorized the society to certify the ship.
00:28:27:00 - 00:29:10:19
Alessandro Maccari
And this resulted also in what we call a class innovation that is enabling the operator or the ship operator to perform additional periodic inspection using remote survey. And this is sort of a step forward towards the next the digital level. And the survey on this specific ship included that inspection of the HAL and the machinery and the compliance with applicable rules and regulations and the close up surveys of the ballast tanks, sea water ballast tanks and the cargo holds the work carried out using drones.
00:29:10:21 - 00:29:46:24
Alessandro Maccari
The excellent results that we got from these inspection is surely opening the way for a more systematic application to the shipping industry. The problems encountered that where basically the connectivity, the connectivity kit, if you like, that is needed to ensure that we have a flawless 4G wireless connection in all areas on board for the ship owners are investing in these, let me say, Wi-Fi technology on board.
00:29:46:24 - 00:30:22:20
Alessandro Maccari
There is a pretty small investment that can translate into really huge savings and operational continuity of the ship and the higher revenues. And COVID 19 then was a clear test bed for these technologies, and there is now a real take up of these technology, especially in both state controlled. That is changing the mind about the possibility of systematically use these technology is.
00:30:23:00 - 00:30:39:12
Abigail Acton
I suppose that when you when you start to get a foot through the door, then that door will open further. If what you're showing is demonstrably better than it's, I think probably just a question of, of getting the initial uptake. And then I guess it'll snowball like, like most technology. What do you think?
00:30:39:12 - 00:31:15:00
André Croft de Moura
Andre I, I fully agree. I think there are tipping points, right? So I think success cases are what breeds and I think I'll ask Andrew probably had a great success case in the trial and demonstration carried out and those then align the stakeholders. So there is a number of people that have to see this as an advantage and then they have to be convinced that the disruption it's going to cause to their existing methods is worth that cost.
00:31:15:02 - 00:31:31:20
Abigail Acton
In both cases, you're saving a lot of downtime, it sounds. Can I ask you both one final question. If you were to consider in ten years time, looking forward ten years time, for example, how do you think your technology will be used and what are the possible developments? The most intriguing? What do you see coming down the line?
00:31:31:21 - 00:31:34:14
Abigail Acton
Things are changing so quickly. I'll go to Alessandra for that one.
00:31:34:20 - 00:32:09:20
Alessandro Maccari
Surely we have many more pilots to fly themselves and we may have perhaps less the surveyors that are, let me say, wasting time just in traveling and go in the most remote places around the world to go on board. And those experts can really focus their attention on that analysis of their results and count all the unnecessary and costly programs that are related to the current state of the art.
00:32:09:20 - 00:32:22:08
Alessandro Maccari
So in ten years time, there will be a shift in the specialization and a strong, stronger development of all of these technologies, which is fantastic.
00:32:22:08 - 00:32:25:12
Abigail Acton
Thank you, Andre. How do you see it in ten years time.
00:32:25:14 - 00:32:49:02
André Croft de Moura
In our sector? I actually see a little difference what I expect, what we've seen is an industry where people had to do everything. Today we have people taking machines to do most of the work, robots to do most of the work where I see going forward in 10 to 15 years and where we really want to take a part is removing humans from the equation.
00:32:49:04 - 00:33:23:20
André Croft de Moura
So in our case, what we're talking about is resident drones at wind farms that should be fully autonomous, beginning to end. What this means is that they should be an integral part of the operation and maintenance systems of the wind parks so that not a single person is involved in the decision making of launching it. So you could have a vibration that sets off an alarm in turbine X when the wind is low, that turbine will stop, A drone will be deployed automatically.
00:33:24:01 - 00:33:43:02
André Croft de Moura
It will collect the data, it will go back to base, it will upload the data. That data will be automatically analyzed and that will trigger an intervention if needed. If not, it will log it and add to the history of that of that turbine to be monitored in the future.
00:33:43:04 - 00:34:02:08
Abigail Acton
Of course, the contexts are quite different. I mean, you're both using the same sim at the similar sort of technology and I imagine probably the same sort of approach when it comes to data sharing and analysis. But of course, with Alexandra's case, there's lives at stake. If a if a ship is in trouble, it potentially can be dangerous before for people and for the wind turbines.
00:34:02:10 - 00:34:14:02
Abigail Acton
It's a loss of power time, as it were, its its downtime. So there's a slight difference. There maybe is why Alessandra is still seeing in his mind a role for the interpretation to be done.
00:34:14:02 - 00:34:34:11
André Croft de Moura
And I also believe, if you may, the turbines are extremely similar and the repeatability we're talking about one or two robots to cover an entire offshore park. Alessandra uses different robots for different contexts to find different things and ships that are all different between themselves.
00:34:34:11 - 00:34:34:23
Abigail Acton
Exactly.
00:34:34:23 - 00:34:37:17
André Croft de Moura
The repeatability and scalability is different.
00:34:37:17 - 00:34:48:05
Abigail Acton
Is a different thing. Yeah. And hence the ability to to completely autonomous in your field. Whereas for Alessandra, Alessandra, you obviously always see a role for humans with regards to the process of inspection.
00:34:48:05 - 00:35:20:20
Alessandro Maccari
Yes, absolutely. Drones can be typically operated by just one person without any extensive safety equipment that, just with a general knowledge of the procedure, does need to be an expert in the structural elements in machines or even rigging in whatever, meaning also that the cost associated and the downtime can be significantly reduced not only for that survey but also for the ship operator.
00:35:20:22 - 00:35:32:20
Alessandro Maccari
And then the data can be also processed by the experts wherever they are in the world. And this probably is the greatest advantage of these new technology.
00:35:32:22 - 00:35:52:23
Abigail Acton
Right? Okay. Excellent. Well, listen, thank you very, very much for your time, both of you. That was a fascinating conversation. And it shows really clearly the benefit of using the drones and the technology behind them and the information that they gain either hand in hand with human interpreters or in a completely autonomous world. Excellent. Thank you very much to you both.
00:35:52:23 - 00:35:53:23
André Croft de Moura
Thank you very much, Abigail.
00:35:54:01 - 00:35:54:20
Abigail Acton
Thank you. It was.
00:35:54:20 - 00:35:55:06
André Croft de Moura
A pleasure.
00:35:55:06 - 00:35:55:23
Abigail Acton
For me to.
00:35:55:24 - 00:35:56:17
Alessandro Maccari
Thank every go.
00:35:56:19 - 00:35:58:02
Abigail Acton
You're very welcome on this, Allessandro.
00:35:58:04 - 00:36:00:10
Alessandro Maccari
An honor and a privilege, really.
00:36:00:12 - 00:36:19:08
Abigail Acton
Thank you. Lovely having you. Take care of yourselves. are you interested in what other EU funded projects are doing using drones and automated systems to broaden our view of the world around us? The Cordis website will give you an insight into the results of projects funded by the Horizon 2020 program that are working in this area.
00:36:19:13 - 00:36:37:17
Abigail Acton
The website has articles and interviews that explore the results of research being conducted in a very broad range of domains from bacteria to bees. There's something there for you. Maybe you're involved in a project or would like to apply for funding. Take a look at what others are doing in your domain. So come and check out the research that's revealing what makes our world tick.
00:36:37:19 - 00:36:45:08
Abigail Acton
We're always happy to hear from you. Drop us a line editorial at Cordis dot Europa dot EU until next time.
This is an AI transcription.
00:00:10:05 - 00:00:16:06
Abigail Acton
This is CORDIScovery.
00:00:16:08 - 00:00:38:19
Abigail Acton
Hello. Welcome to this episode of CORDIScovery With me, Abigail Acton. Let's talk about the industrial use of drones, the technical challenges and the practical benefits. The numbers of those vast turbines off some of our shores are set to increase as we step up the drive to increase renewable sources of energy. But who checks the blades to make sure they're holding up to the impact of weather and wear. drones can save people.
00:00:38:19 - 00:01:05:00
Abigail Acton
The hazardous task of manual inspection, both over the open sea and in it. If you're checking the structural integrity of a ship, what is the benefit of using drones, crawlers and autonomous devices instead of engineers and mechanics? Can real time sensing lead to quicker decision making and less downtime? It's a good job. I have two guests whose projects have been supported by the EU Horizon 2020 program who are perfectly placed to answer these and other questions.
00:01:05:06 - 00:01:23:05
Abigail Acton
Welcome to CEO of Blade site André Croft de Moura is interested in robotics and data solutions applied to renewable energy generation with his background in marine biology and oceanography. Andre's current focus is on how to improve the structural analysis of blades on offshore wind turbines. Welcome, Andre.
00:01:23:10 - 00:01:25:12
André Croft de Moura
Thank you very much, Abigail. Thank you for the invite.
00:01:25:16 - 00:01:42:13
Abigail Acton
Super nice to have you with us. Alessandro Maccari whose background is in naval architecture and Marine engineering, is research and development director at Rena Services in Italy. Alessandro has been applying his expertise to the challenges posed by the use of autonomous vehicles in ship inspections. Hello, Alessandro.
00:01:42:15 - 00:01:44:17
Alessandro Maccari
Hello. Thank you.
00:01:44:19 - 00:02:02:11
Abigail Acton
You're very welcome. Andre, let's move to you. Your project, Windrone Zenith has been working on developing completely autonomous drones that can inspect all three blades on wind turbines. And you're focusing on offshore wind farms. Can you tell me the main technical challenges that confronted you with this?
00:02:02:13 - 00:02:44:22
André Croft de Moura
Absolutely. So in the field of robotics, specifically for autonomy, what we're trying to do is to enable machines to have an accurate understanding of their environment and being able to react to it in real time. So as people, we are used to using our eyes or perception or feel to navigate the world in a way that is very intuitive to us, we don't have to think about it, and our brain does an amazing job at processing this in real time, which means that we don't fall over objects.
00:02:44:22 - 00:03:14:21
André Croft de Moura
We're in balance and we usually get to where we try to go. Now, when we try to pass on some of these abilities on to robots, the biggest challenge is can we empower them to do specific tasks in a repeatable, robust and safe way? And over the past 10 to 15 years, the advancements in sensors have been immense.
00:03:14:23 - 00:03:51:19
André Croft de Moura
And so what this means is that sensors such as light hours and cameras and depth cameras have meant that we now have the ability to give processing units information, enabling them to react in real time. And this is very important because especially in real world environments and outside, you don't have time. Lag is a is a very big challenge, right, Because you have to be able to carry out these operations in a in a very swift way.
00:03:51:21 - 00:03:58:24
André Croft de Moura
And with that, I would bring the second big component, which is processing power has increased immensely.
00:03:59:01 - 00:04:05:24
Abigail Acton
So that means that the information that you're getting back from the devices you can get, you can you can process it faster and more in-depth, as it were.
00:04:06:01 - 00:04:29:23
André Croft de Moura
Correct. So if the sensors are the eyes and the nose of the robots and the ears, then the brain power, which is how quickly we can process that information is critical. And this is even more so for drones, because in this case, the processing units are on the drones and wait on drones are a critical factor because they affect the flight time.
00:04:30:00 - 00:04:50:23
André Croft de Moura
So we're able to pack more and more processing power in smaller and lighter packages and so bring all of this together in a way that works robust and repeatedly has been the overarching challenge that we've been bringing together on the robotics side.
00:04:51:00 - 00:05:07:11
Abigail Acton
Right. And I guess for you, with your interest in in in blade structural analysis and reporting of. Sure, one of the challenges has been able to have a device that can actually inspect all three blades rather than just a couple. I mean, because that takes more time, right? I know that was one of your goals.
00:05:07:11 - 00:05:32:23
André Croft de Moura
Yes. So we had actually we've been in the market of Blade inspections since 2016, but we were inspecting one blade at a time. Right. Blade had to be in a predetermined position. And this position was vertical. So in practical terms, what this means is that we were actually operating in a 2D environment because we could make very good assumptions about what this object that we were inspecting was.
00:05:33:00 - 00:05:54:03
André Croft de Moura
And going from there to inspecting the three blades means that the other blades are off at an angle, which in turn means that our perception of the world now needs to be in 3D. So it's actually one order of magnitude more complex to be navigating in a 3D environment rather than a 2D environment. We can see that in computer games, etc..
00:05:54:09 - 00:05:55:20
Abigail Acton
Yeah. And the duration of flight.
00:05:55:23 - 00:05:56:12
André Croft de Moura
Correct.
00:05:56:16 - 00:06:14:21
Abigail Acton
I mean, how did you get around that? Because as you were just saying, it's it's vitally important that they're not carrying much of a load because that will impact on the flight time, as you just said. I mean, inspecting three blades in 3D, as you've just described, must be much, much more time consuming. Is it three times more time consuming or is it actually even more than the three times?
00:06:14:22 - 00:06:19:03
André Croft de Moura
No, it is slightly less because you can save on the takeoff and landing time.
00:06:19:04 - 00:06:20:17
Abigail Acton
Yes, of course they're out there.
00:06:20:17 - 00:06:47:13
André Croft de Moura
Yeah, exactly. Our approach has been we actually don't develop the drone itself. The drone is off the shelf. What we do is we've developed a payload that we attach to the drone, enabling it, taking over its decision making and enabling it to do this very specific operation. So the answer to your question is two fold is, on one hand, we have to select from the market a drone that has the ability to fly the time that we needed to.
00:06:47:19 - 00:07:03:18
André Croft de Moura
And secondly, we have to make these packages as small and as light as possible. Small helps with it being aerodynamic and therefore having less resistance to the wind. And obviously the weight will have a direct impact on the flight time as well.
00:07:03:24 - 00:07:13:12
Abigail Acton
And how long is it taking you to get to the stage where you now actually do have the package, as you call it, the technology that will actually inspect all three blades?
00:07:13:14 - 00:07:37:08
André Croft de Moura
So we started the company started in 2015, and it took us to 2017 to be able to have our first operating prototype to do the One Blade. And our project kicked off in 2019. And let's say that there's the 3D, although it's an order of magnitude more complex, it does build on some of the building blocks that we used in the first one.
00:07:37:08 - 00:07:43:11
André Croft de Moura
So really we're at the culmination of around seven years of development to get to the point where we are today.
00:07:43:11 - 00:07:45:12
Abigail Acton
Right. Evolutionary process, basically.
00:07:45:13 - 00:07:53:03
André Croft de Moura
Exactly. But the the whole tree blade was actually developed over the course of the wind drones at its project.
00:07:53:05 - 00:08:06:18
Abigail Acton
Right. I mean, that sounds like an an enormous amount of of work, very sort of intense activity to try and and get to where you are now. What drives you and your team? What was the motivation to try and and and and develop such a technology.
00:08:06:20 - 00:08:51:21
André Croft de Moura
So I am the I am the founder of the company. And the goal behind this was it was crystal clear and this comes from my understanding that making renewable energy ubiquitous is a priority for mankind. And the biggest single driver of that is to make renewable energy cheaper. If we can make the levelized cost of energy, of renewable energy as cheap and especially cheaper than existing carbon sources, then we don't need to use environmental factors to convince the big decision makers to move in that direction.
00:08:51:23 - 00:09:23:11
André Croft de Moura
All the economic incentives align with the environmental ones and that is why I thought that wind energy in particular is very well suited to fill this gap. In fact, wind energy is projected to become the world's largest source of energy by 2050. And and we're talking about a distributed source of energy, right? We're talking about millions of turbines across several countries and continents having to be continuously maintained individually.
00:09:23:13 - 00:10:04:17
André Croft de Moura
And so this implies a scaling of servicing and inspection and monitoring to pretty much an unprecedented scale. And what I found was that many of the existing methods of several aspects of a wind turbine were not optimized. And Blades was, for me, an obvious one, because blades were being inspected either through rope work, which implies one or two technicians roping off, rappelling off a blade and using a little hammer and a little point and shoot camera to inspect it, which is dangerous, expensive and takes a long time.
00:10:04:17 - 00:10:22:18
André Croft de Moura
And here this time component I'd like to bring back to the drone because a turbine exists to run to generate electricity. So the longer that it is not running, the more expensive energy that you're producing when it is running on a yearly on a yearly basis is more expensive, right? So time is an important element in wind.
00:10:22:23 - 00:10:29:05
Abigail Acton
Do you have any idea how much time is actually lost through inspection processes and repairs?
00:10:29:07 - 00:10:48:18
André Croft de Moura
Yes. So mostly on the inspection, because that's where we focus on. You can inspect between one and two turbines a day. So you're talking about 4 to 6 hours per turbine if you're doing road work, If on another hand you do this with a drone, I mean a three blade solution, we're targeting 22 minutes per turbine.
00:10:48:19 - 00:10:50:10
Abigail Acton
Goodness me. That's a huge difference.
00:10:50:12 - 00:10:52:02
André Croft de Moura
Exactly.
00:10:52:04 - 00:11:12:03
Abigail Acton
So that's a real saving of downtime. Yeah. No, Fabulous. Very, very interesting. And I mean, this is this is obviously incredibly, clearly compelling. And anyone listening must be really excited to hear about about this concept. But are you seeing interest from operators themselves? What's actually happening in terms of the market? Your prototype stage, Is anyone taking it up, wanting to go further?
00:11:12:05 - 00:11:38:22
André Croft de Moura
It's very funny that you ask this because we we felt that since the very beginning, we've we've been pushing the industry's boundaries. So for the first couple of years, everyone of the market really wasn't ready for what we were doing, and nobody believed that drones would actually replace this. It must be said that overall many industries, but wind, which I know they're slow, they're slow, slowly evolving industries.
00:11:38:22 - 00:12:00:22
André Croft de Moura
And so change has a cost. And the adoption of new solutions usually takes some time. So we had to convince the market that drones could do this. And today drones are the de facto way of doing inspections. Brilliant. So the uptake took some time and now it is the most common way. So we've seen a lot of interest in the solution.
00:12:01:02 - 00:12:13:23
Abigail Acton
that's fantastic. That's excellent. I'm really glad to hear that. Alessandro, let me bring you in here. You're you're using drones in a similar sort of way, but in a very different context. Would you have any comments to make to Andre?
00:12:14:00 - 00:12:48:11
Alessandro Maccari
Yes. The question I have on the use of the drones, especially on this space, on the wind farm, is the reliability of the information taken. And if the inspection bodies and administration or legal entities to have to verify the compliance of the inspection are easily using the these data or there is a regulatory barrier to be overcome in the in using drones for the remote inspection.
00:12:48:15 - 00:13:18:04
André Croft de Moura
Thank you for the question, Alessandro. I think that's a very poignant one. So in the industry where we operate, there is no global standardized way of how inspections need to be carried out or a threshold for that acceptance. From a regulatory aspect, what exists are self-imposed quality standards from the different manufacturers and from different clients. Now, this isn't universally true.
00:13:18:06 - 00:13:58:04
André Croft de Moura
Germany has mandatory statutory inspections. France has just enforced them. So there is an industry push towards trying to make these inspections much more standardized. I have to say that it is a challenge. So today in Germany, drones are not accepted for visual inspections of blades and this comes to one of my previous points of there needing to be a modernization and a push towards accepting these new methods of inspection because everyone benefits instead of increasing costs to the industry.
00:13:58:06 - 00:14:46:07
André Croft de Moura
However, we can tune quality, we can tune sensors, and we are giving defect location and resolution, which we believe is much higher than what an inspector can do on the blade, which is one of the big advantages, I think, of a drone. So instead of having someone on on a blade that will register what he wants to register and can register on that day, and this will vary per person, per day, per site, per blade, We capture the full surface, which means that we can share this information between many inspectors have many different and it makes information much more accountable, comparable and takes me to my last point, which is this is all to push
00:14:46:07 - 00:14:49:18
André Croft de Moura
the industry towards making data driven decisions.
00:14:49:22 - 00:15:08:04
Abigail Acton
Alessandra I think that that probably really strikes a note with you because I know that your project, the Robin's project, has made the use of crawlers and drones more viable for ship inspection. And you passionately believe that these tools are the way forward for the industry. Thank you, Andre, but I'm just going to turn to Alessandro for now.
00:15:08:09 - 00:15:14:08
Abigail Acton
What are the steps involved in ship inspection? Alessandro Currently, and what are the drawbacks of those more traditional methods?
00:15:14:10 - 00:16:00:02
Alessandro Maccari
Yes, well, close inspection classifications or site. The inspection and surveys on ships have the primary goal of confirm if a ship or the structures of a ship and all of the components, I mean, the mechanical, electrical components are fit for purpose or contain defects such as corrosion or cracking, buckling or coating breakdown. Some of the inspections are required to verify the vessel's condition with close up surveys, and this is valid for, say, for all ship types, including naval vessels, but also fixed and mobile offshore units.
00:16:00:02 - 00:16:32:13
Alessandro Maccari
And these are the few where probably we are somewhat somehow closer to the application of the wind farms. So there are a variety of possible inspections on board. You may have the inspection of uppermost elements like the top of the masts or cranes that you have on specific cargo ships, and the top part of the front is the exhausts, but also radars and communication equipment.
00:16:32:15 - 00:16:56:21
Alessandro Maccari
But on the other hand, that you have also the the need to go inside confined spaces and the confined space is also could be dangerous. Space is or how to reach could be tanks or ballast spaces that contain ballast water, seawater, void spaces, but also of tanks and cargo holds. Yes.
00:16:56:21 - 00:17:12:08
Abigail Acton
So that the environments are diverse and and range extremely from the exposed to the to the to the constraint. But I would I'm curious to know about is could you tell us a little bit about the status quo before the use of drones? In other words, what are the problems with using people? Why can't we just carry on using people?
00:17:12:14 - 00:17:42:19
Alessandro Maccari
Well, we will continue using people, but in a different way. In the last five years, the remote inspection have multiplied. That would say exponentially, also boosted by the impact of COVID 19 and the once upon a time, I could say that the Marine surveyors had to go physically on board and the access to the areas where the station has to be carried out.
00:17:42:21 - 00:17:53:12
Alessandro Maccari
And this requires a lot of travel preparation. That is a problem of time and cost because we have to prepare the spaces where the human being have to enter.
00:17:53:17 - 00:17:55:14
Abigail Acton
And I guess it could be hazardous sometimes.
00:17:55:17 - 00:18:29:23
Alessandro Maccari
It could well be. Imagine you have to inspect, for instance, that the cargo holds of a tanker or a ship that is carrying chemical product. So you have to open the spaces, you have ventilate, you have to check that the atmosphere can breathe the or prevent any explosion problem or even prepare some very specific equipment for the surveillance like breathing apparatus and special protective equipment to go inside the specific spaces.
00:18:29:23 - 00:18:57:09
Alessandro Maccari
Right. So you may need scaffolding, you may need additional equipment in order to reach the areas that nobody cannot be reached or simply standing back or of climbing up the mast. So you can also imagine that the safety and security problem that you have at the moment, but there is a physical effort also inside that in these kind of traditional inspection.
00:18:57:10 - 00:19:20:10
Abigail Acton
Right. So that's clear then, that there are obviously real drawbacks, too, to to just using people. Thanks for explaining that. So then the benefit of carrying these inspections out autonomously is is evident. But how can a drone or a crawler identify the extent of an issue? For example, how can a drone verify the departure of rust is superficially or or is actually in fact structurally problematic?
00:19:20:10 - 00:19:22:18
Abigail Acton
Can you tell us a little bit more about the sensors?
00:19:22:20 - 00:20:03:23
Alessandro Maccari
First of all, the drone has to reach that right position. And if it is a single point like double the master or a single spot, the inside the ship, that is pretty easy. But normally we have to also scan a very large surface, like the internal part of a tank or a cargo hold. So the drone or the crawler also has to follow a specific factor and that in order to scan completely and systematically the surface and this requires some preparation and and also some pre-planned piloting of the equipment.
00:20:04:00 - 00:20:42:19
Alessandro Maccari
Then, of course, you have to detect if there is a just a spot of roster, if it is something dirty sport or you have a much wider corrosion problem. So you'll need a very high quality video footage for sure, a 4K definition for the footage, and also the possibility to map exact where the defect is located and the drones or flying robots do not normally land on the surface and cannot get samples.
00:20:42:21 - 00:21:14:24
Alessandro Maccari
This is the reason why, in addition to drones, we have also developed specific problems that are physically climbing, are attached with magnetic devices to the steel structure of the ship and are able also to to test the probe and even get some samples of the of the paint of the raster and do basically the same job that the human being could carry out with the inside.
00:21:14:24 - 00:21:16:22
Alessandro Maccari
The whole of a ship.
00:21:17:00 - 00:21:39:12
Abigail Acton
Absolutely. But also, as Andre says, without the subjectivity that a human brings to the task in a more objective way, because of course, it's a machine, not a human. So it's it's it's following the program that you, you, you, you placed on it rather than the that the inclination that a human might have. Because as Andre was pointing out and I think it makes sense that each engineer or each technician brings their own perspective to a task.
00:21:39:13 - 00:21:42:15
Abigail Acton
So you get rid of the subjectivity, which I imagine is useful.
00:21:42:15 - 00:22:29:18
Alessandro Maccari
No? Well, subjectivity is a pros and cons because a very expert, they can immediately pinpoint or detect where you have the troubles and go straight there for a machine that we may use a machine learning and artificial intelligence in order to teach the robot on how to manage the inspection, to have some scrutiny of the difficult areas and concentrate also the number of the spots and the accuracy of the controls in the area that would require the maximum attention.
00:22:29:20 - 00:22:56:02
Alessandro Maccari
This is the reason why the drones and the crawlers for shipping space have to be very specific, not only in terms of reaching the point of interest, but also for the contact next to measurements. And before the measurement in global coordinates in order to be able then to to go straight there to to to start the repair work right.
00:22:56:06 - 00:22:58:16
Abigail Acton
And how does this data get shared?
00:22:58:18 - 00:23:27:02
Alessandro Maccari
So first of all, you need the possibility to connect the Internet to the ship, to the rest of the world. And this is a big advantage. Managing the big data, of course, is the future and the big data and the possibility to share in real time the information we the any office around the world, the possibility to involve the key experts wherever they are.
00:23:27:04 - 00:23:59:04
Alessandro Maccari
This is an incredible advantage because basically on board you may have just one surveyor with a lot of experience able to manage all that complex situation that you may find on board. But if you get the data and can send that the data in real time wherever it needs, so you may have the top expert in the world that would be immediately available to process and to find the possible way forward.
00:23:59:04 - 00:24:25:22
Alessandro Maccari
And basically, if you need to have an action done on board or if you can maybe wait a little longer to have the repair, work it down the during one of these scheduled stops of the ship. And this is also of paramount importance in case of accidents where you can have immediate understanding of the situation on board and take the appropriate action.
00:24:25:23 - 00:24:46:20
Abigail Acton
Yeah. So I mean, this again, it sounds it sounds so clearly advantageous rather like Andre's as well. I mean, it's it's obviously the way forward. But are you having problems with regulators? It's a question I posed to Andre as well. How is industry taking this up and are regulators embracing it or are you having a problem trying to get your disruptive technology accepted by the status quo?
00:24:46:20 - 00:25:19:05
Alessandro Maccari
Well, the technology is giving a lot of opportunities, but we have a lot of barriers still to be removed to it, to adopt that these robotics and autonomous system inspection for for ship safety, the data collected during the inspection, we know that can be securely acquired that be to maintain and use that but the regulatory framework is not fully ready to accept that.
00:25:19:07 - 00:25:56:04
Alessandro Maccari
It is just a matter of miseducation. We have to use the technology to renew to use technology to eliminate some bureaucracy and convince specifically like administration, that the data acquired we had that the use of drones are as effective as the human surveyor in finding the right elements.
00:25:56:04 - 00:26:07:24
Abigail Acton
Yes. Yes. And so this is where I'd like to bring Andre back in, actually. So how do you feel about the future with regards to regulation? Do you think that it's around the corner or do you think that that's going to be a struggle?
00:26:08:01 - 00:26:39:13
André Croft de Moura
My understanding is that this is aa2 way a two way push. So on one hand, we need regulators to have the openness and the willingness to accept that there are overarching benefits if we can introduce more efficient tools, this will make the sectors in themselves more competitive, more streamlined. And secondly, I do think that the burden of proof is clearly on our side.
00:26:39:15 - 00:27:04:06
André Croft de Moura
So we are the ones that are changing the status quo. We have to prove the efficiency, we have to prove the benefits, and we have to do so in a consistent manner that brings this into the brings the right entities into the conversation. And we understand these industries have operated for many decades. They are used to doing things in a certain way.
00:27:04:08 - 00:27:29:03
André Croft de Moura
And so it has to be our persistence and our data that has to be able to to to push it in the right direction. So it's the balance between these two things. But no matter how much we do this, if there is no openness and there is no ability to adapt and to change from the regulatory, then it'll be it'll be too long a battle and the problem here is that this might stifle innovation, right?
00:27:29:03 - 00:27:32:12
André Croft de Moura
Because we need the market to be there for us to offer our services.
00:27:32:16 - 00:27:53:13
Abigail Acton
Of course. Yeah. And Alessandra, I mean, you the ROBINS project, which was your project that you were involved with and also had part of its goal to, to streamline acceptance and, and regulation. How did that part go? We were working, I think, with regulators a little, weren't you, to try and to make things easier. Smooth bottlenecks.
00:27:53:13 - 00:28:26:23
Alessandro Maccari
Yes, I'm very glad that the during the project in June 2020, we performed that were the first the statutory and plus survey by using live streaming remote technology is on a by carrier in operation and after is a remote survey. The saga administration was Liberia that also attended that The survey remotely authorized the society to certify the ship.
00:28:27:00 - 00:29:10:19
Alessandro Maccari
And this resulted also in what we call a class innovation that is enabling the operator or the ship operator to perform additional periodic inspection using remote survey. And this is sort of a step forward towards the next the digital level. And the survey on this specific ship included that inspection of the HAL and the machinery and the compliance with applicable rules and regulations and the close up surveys of the ballast tanks, sea water ballast tanks and the cargo holds the work carried out using drones.
00:29:10:21 - 00:29:46:24
Alessandro Maccari
The excellent results that we got from these inspection is surely opening the way for a more systematic application to the shipping industry. The problems encountered that where basically the connectivity, the connectivity kit, if you like, that is needed to ensure that we have a flawless 4G wireless connection in all areas on board for the ship owners are investing in these, let me say, Wi-Fi technology on board.
00:29:46:24 - 00:30:22:20
Alessandro Maccari
There is a pretty small investment that can translate into really huge savings and operational continuity of the ship and the higher revenues. And COVID 19 then was a clear test bed for these technologies, and there is now a real take up of these technology, especially in both state controlled. That is changing the mind about the possibility of systematically use these technology is.
00:30:23:00 - 00:30:39:12
Abigail Acton
I suppose that when you when you start to get a foot through the door, then that door will open further. If what you're showing is demonstrably better than it's, I think probably just a question of, of getting the initial uptake. And then I guess it'll snowball like, like most technology. What do you think?
00:30:39:12 - 00:31:15:00
André Croft de Moura
Andre I, I fully agree. I think there are tipping points, right? So I think success cases are what breeds and I think I'll ask Andrew probably had a great success case in the trial and demonstration carried out and those then align the stakeholders. So there is a number of people that have to see this as an advantage and then they have to be convinced that the disruption it's going to cause to their existing methods is worth that cost.
00:31:15:02 - 00:31:31:20
Abigail Acton
In both cases, you're saving a lot of downtime, it sounds. Can I ask you both one final question. If you were to consider in ten years time, looking forward ten years time, for example, how do you think your technology will be used and what are the possible developments? The most intriguing? What do you see coming down the line?
00:31:31:21 - 00:31:34:14
Abigail Acton
Things are changing so quickly. I'll go to Alessandra for that one.
00:31:34:20 - 00:32:09:20
Alessandro Maccari
Surely we have many more pilots to fly themselves and we may have perhaps less the surveyors that are, let me say, wasting time just in traveling and go in the most remote places around the world to go on board. And those experts can really focus their attention on that analysis of their results and count all the unnecessary and costly programs that are related to the current state of the art.
00:32:09:20 - 00:32:22:08
Alessandro Maccari
So in ten years time, there will be a shift in the specialization and a strong, stronger development of all of these technologies, which is fantastic.
00:32:22:08 - 00:32:25:12
Abigail Acton
Thank you, Andre. How do you see it in ten years time.
00:32:25:14 - 00:32:49:02
André Croft de Moura
In our sector? I actually see a little difference what I expect, what we've seen is an industry where people had to do everything. Today we have people taking machines to do most of the work, robots to do most of the work where I see going forward in 10 to 15 years and where we really want to take a part is removing humans from the equation.
00:32:49:04 - 00:33:23:20
André Croft de Moura
So in our case, what we're talking about is resident drones at wind farms that should be fully autonomous, beginning to end. What this means is that they should be an integral part of the operation and maintenance systems of the wind parks so that not a single person is involved in the decision making of launching it. So you could have a vibration that sets off an alarm in turbine X when the wind is low, that turbine will stop, A drone will be deployed automatically.
00:33:24:01 - 00:33:43:02
André Croft de Moura
It will collect the data, it will go back to base, it will upload the data. That data will be automatically analyzed and that will trigger an intervention if needed. If not, it will log it and add to the history of that of that turbine to be monitored in the future.
00:33:43:04 - 00:34:02:08
Abigail Acton
Of course, the contexts are quite different. I mean, you're both using the same sim at the similar sort of technology and I imagine probably the same sort of approach when it comes to data sharing and analysis. But of course, with Alexandra's case, there's lives at stake. If a if a ship is in trouble, it potentially can be dangerous before for people and for the wind turbines.
00:34:02:10 - 00:34:14:02
Abigail Acton
It's a loss of power time, as it were, its its downtime. So there's a slight difference. There maybe is why Alessandra is still seeing in his mind a role for the interpretation to be done.
00:34:14:02 - 00:34:34:11
André Croft de Moura
And I also believe, if you may, the turbines are extremely similar and the repeatability we're talking about one or two robots to cover an entire offshore park. Alessandra uses different robots for different contexts to find different things and ships that are all different between themselves.
00:34:34:11 - 00:34:34:23
Abigail Acton
Exactly.
00:34:34:23 - 00:34:37:17
André Croft de Moura
The repeatability and scalability is different.
00:34:37:17 - 00:34:48:05
Abigail Acton
Is a different thing. Yeah. And hence the ability to to completely autonomous in your field. Whereas for Alessandra, Alessandra, you obviously always see a role for humans with regards to the process of inspection.
00:34:48:05 - 00:35:20:20
Alessandro Maccari
Yes, absolutely. Drones can be typically operated by just one person without any extensive safety equipment that, just with a general knowledge of the procedure, does need to be an expert in the structural elements in machines or even rigging in whatever, meaning also that the cost associated and the downtime can be significantly reduced not only for that survey but also for the ship operator.
00:35:20:22 - 00:35:32:20
Alessandro Maccari
And then the data can be also processed by the experts wherever they are in the world. And this probably is the greatest advantage of these new technology.
00:35:32:22 - 00:35:52:23
Abigail Acton
Right? Okay. Excellent. Well, listen, thank you very, very much for your time, both of you. That was a fascinating conversation. And it shows really clearly the benefit of using the drones and the technology behind them and the information that they gain either hand in hand with human interpreters or in a completely autonomous world. Excellent. Thank you very much to you both.
00:35:52:23 - 00:35:53:23
André Croft de Moura
Thank you very much, Abigail.
00:35:54:01 - 00:35:54:20
Abigail Acton
Thank you. It was.
00:35:54:20 - 00:35:55:06
André Croft de Moura
A pleasure.
00:35:55:06 - 00:35:55:23
Abigail Acton
For me to.
00:35:55:24 - 00:35:56:17
Alessandro Maccari
Thank every go.
00:35:56:19 - 00:35:58:02
Abigail Acton
You're very welcome on this, Allessandro.
00:35:58:04 - 00:36:00:10
Alessandro Maccari
An honor and a privilege, really.
00:36:00:12 - 00:36:19:08
Abigail Acton
Thank you. Lovely having you. Take care of yourselves. are you interested in what other EU funded projects are doing using drones and automated systems to broaden our view of the world around us? The Cordis website will give you an insight into the results of projects funded by the Horizon 2020 program that are working in this area.
00:36:19:13 - 00:36:37:17
Abigail Acton
The website has articles and interviews that explore the results of research being conducted in a very broad range of domains from bacteria to bees. There's something there for you. Maybe you're involved in a project or would like to apply for funding. Take a look at what others are doing in your domain. So come and check out the research that's revealing what makes our world tick.
00:36:37:19 - 00:36:45:08
Abigail Acton
We're always happy to hear from you. Drop us a line editorial at Cordis dot Europa dot EU until next time.
Insights and ideas
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 drones provide a new way of approaching the problem. The technology used in inspections carried out by autonomous devices, or robots, is getting evermore sophisticated. Video footage is the primary source of information, but crawlers can scrape material for sampling and test surfaces, even odours can be analysed. Once collected, all the information can be shared with leading experts wherever they are based, saving the cost and time of travelling. As our guests will tell you, scheduling repair at the next stop a ship makes saves a lot of down time, and in the case of an accident, the real-time feedback can make a real difference to safety. When it comes to wind farms, the use of fully automated drones used on a pre-programmed schedule can make wind energy more competitive and streamlined, bringing the cost of the renewable energy down. Exploring these and other issues 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. With his background in Marine Biology and Oceanography, his current focus is on how to streamline the structural analysis of the blades on offshore wind turbines. 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. Alessandro coordinated the ROBINS project and has been applying his expertise to the challenges posed by the use of autonomous vehicles in ship inspections.
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Keywords
CORDIScovery, CORDIS, Windrone Zenith, ROBINS, robots, drones, autonomous devices, wind turbine, blades, ship, inspection, safety