New release improves speed, cost and quality of external visual blade inspections
Clobotics Wind Services is now shipping the latest version of its autonomous drone-based inspection system. The 4.8 release of Clobotics IBIS™ leverages the newly released Sony ILX-LR1 commercial camera, along with numerous mechanical and software improvements to deliver a state-of-the-art combination of speed, cost, and quality of data collected in wind turbine blade visual inspections.
“Arthwind has deployed the Clobotics IBIS™ drone hardware in inspecting more than 10,000 wind turbines in the last two to three years. It is a robust system supporting us in the efficient delivery of solutions and insights to our clients. We are excited by the innovation and performance enhancement this new release offers,” says Armando Costa Rego, CEO of Arthwind Technologies.
It starts with the image
The most important piece of data collected in a visual blade inspection is the image and Clobotics constantly iterates its algorithms to improve the quality of images that IBIS™ obtains. That software gets a big boost in this release with the recently available Sony ILX-LR1 camera. Featuring a full frame sensor, sixty-one megapixels of resolution, faster shooting interval and focus adjust speed, better focus control accuracy and longer shutter life, the camera opens up major opportunities to capture substantially better images in the same or less time. Sony’s software development kit (SDK) allows Clobotics complete control over the camera’s capabilities enabling automatic, on-the-fly (literally) adjustments to lighting conditions, distance from the blade and speed of travel. The result is clearer, better lit images collected in the same or less time. And better images increase the chances that all defects on the blade surface will be found and correctly identified every time.
“The newly designed body and functions of the ILX-LR1 meet the high image quality needs of industrial customers. Clobotics is a pioneer in using the high pixel performance of LR1 to take inspection image quality to a new level.” Said Nobuyoshi Shirai, the manager of Image Solution Marketing at Sony.
Beyond the image, continuous improvement
The release also features mechanical and software improvements that are made possible by the combination of the new camera, continued improvements in DJI’s Matrice drone platform and Clobotics accumulated experience with this customized inspection system. New features and benefits include:
- Fully automated one-button takeoff
- Turbines featuring blades up to 135 meters in length can be inspected in a single flight
- Inspection time for a wind turbine with 60-meter blades has dropped by nearly 20% from 21 minutes to 17 minutes
- System lifecycle has been extended to approximately four times as many inspections as the previous version
“From the beginning, our vision has been to build inspection systems powerful enough to collect the quality of images our customers need and our machine learning models require, but reliable enough and easy enough to use that our customers and partners can do the inspections themselves, saving time and money, said George Yan, CEO of Clobotics. The IBIS 4.8 release takes another big step towards that vision.”
Contact us to request more information about blade inspections using this new system.
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