A project to use drones to inspect offshore wind turbines has received a £1.2 million boost.
A consortium, which includes engineers from the University of Bristol and a company founded by graduates, Perpetual Robotics, has been awarded the money from Innovate UK’s programme on robotics and artificial intelligence, as part of the government’s Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund.
The group are developing an automated inspection system, which uses drones fitted with cameras to monitor offshore wind turbines.
The consortium also includes ASV Global and VulcanUAV.
Perpetual Robotics has teamed up with the university’s Visual Information Lab to develop advanced techniques for 3D tracking to support drone navigation.
“This award will make a significant difference to our development plans by allowing us to expand our systems into offshore operation and using the expertise in state-of-the-art tracking provided by the university team,” said project manager, Kostas Karachalios.
Dr Andrew Calway from the university’s computer science department, added the project “focuses our research activities on challenging real-world problems”.
“It is great to see a company, started by university gradates, working in such a worthwhile area as renewable energy.”