Partners

EDP Labelec | edp.com

EDP LABELEC

EDP is a global company, leader in the energy sector, present in 28 markets with ~25GW spread across the globe and operating in the whole energy value chain.
Created with the ambition of being a center of technical excellence, EDP LABELEC is a reference in the areas of engineering, preventive maintenance and innovation. Our services are aimed at the entire value chain of the electricity sector, from generation and transmission, to distribution and consumption of electricity.
The vast experience in high voltage services, electrical and electromechanical testing, inspections, research, certiﬁcations, consulting and environment, has earned our laboratories a growing national and international prestige. The quality, technological knowledge and capacity for innovation of the EDP Labelec technical team have contributed to this, allowing an efficient and adapted response to our customers.
New testing technologies focused on optimising preventive maintenance of electrical equipment and systems, sustainability, renewable sources and energy efficiency are currently the trends that characterise EDP Labelec’s activity. This is also the EDP Group’s strategy, which aims to contribute to a more sustainable future, as a leader in energy transition.

Role in the project:

Project coordinator
Utility perspective of O&M solution for wind farms
Image processing, data analysis and AI/ML
Coordination of the ground test of the whole system
Preparation and coordination of field trials
Economic analysis

AERONES

Aerones was founded in 2018 by Janis Putrams, CTO, and Dainis Kruze, CEO. Aerones is the leader in robotic wind turbine inspection and maintenance services, and the only company providing robotic turbine blade leading edge repairs in more than 27 countries worldwide. Using unique patented robotic technology, crucial tasks are performed 3x – 6x faster, with up to 10x less idle stay days than using conventional methods. Aerones mission is to use its proprietary technology to reduce the complexity and cost of inspections thus facilitating the faster global transition to renewable energy. The innovations that we deliver to the wind industry promote intelligent predictive maintenance of wind turbine blades and towers, helping to maximise efficiency of wind assets and lower operating costs.

Aerones provides a wide range of services, encompassing:

Drone-based visual inspections.
Blade internal inspections employing an innovative crawler robot equipped with 360-degree cameras, LiDAR sensors, and AI for damage detection and classification.
Inspections and repairs of lightning protection systems.
Cleaning of towers, blades, and nacelles, facilitated through a combination of robotic systems and rope access technicians.
Application of ice-phobic coatings designed to deter ice accumulation on turbine blades.
Preventive and corrective leading-edge repairs, which can enhance annual energy production by as much as 5%.
Customer platform with advanced reports and data analysis tools for customers.

Role in the project:

We will be the main responsible for integrating the different technologies into our Robot platform and ensure the new systems can reach the location at the blade where service is needed.

Home – Alerion

ALERION

ALERION is a company founded in 2014 within the technological transfer programme of the European Space Agency (ESA). The founders of ALERION during their PhDs. specialized in software design for spatial relative navigation for asteroid missions and other celestial bodies. Moreover, they worked in drone’s projects designing solutions for extreme environments. In particular, this work led to the implementation of accurate navigation technologies for satellites, and ALERION was founded with the aim to apply this on-the-edge technology to drone navigation, and gave high precision and accuracy to drones.

ALERION is focused on the development of navigation software with high precision and embedded computing in order to implement solutions to inspect infrastructures in real-time. In 2015, ALERION started to develop a fully autonomous drone to inspect wind turbine blades in real-time. This autonomous and relative navigation technology for wind turbines is patented EP17382598 and ES2018/070563, and extended to more than 20 countries.

Moreover, ALERION aims to develop software ecosystems under demand to reduce maintenance costs of the infrastructures for their clients, relying on the latest technologies and data fusion to give the highest added value to the information gathered during inspections. The application of out of the box solutions from artificial intelligence and machine learning is the base of different ALERION products offered for infrastructure inspection. The solutions cover the automatic damage detection towards smart navigation approaches using AI/ML core technology. The aim of ALERION is to provide to their clients with automated customized solutions for any infrastructure.
In the ROMAIN project, ALERION will provide its expertise as drone manufacturer and software developer for embedded system and data analytics to guide and lead the gathering of system specifications. ALERION can provide the full guidance to extract the requirements of the end-to-end system. Moreover, ALERION will lead the tasks related with the design, development and deployment of customised solutions using AI/ML within the project. In this sense, ALERION can provide the current AI/ML core for damage detection and specialize it to categorize and characterize specific damages in order to increase the production level of the final product, and also to define ad-hoc AI/ML pipelines to allow the maximization of gathering of information from data fusion of heterogeneous sources in order to provide faster processes in the WPs for inspection and reparation tasks.

Role in project:

System specification and end-user requirements
Design of the advanced image processing techniques
Design of the Artificial Intelligence solutions including
Selection, curation and training ML cores
Definition of AI processes to automate image processing of shearography and thermography images

Research centre | Technological development | Tecnalia

TECNALIA

TECNALIA is the largest center of applied research and technological development in Spain, a benchmark in Europe and a member of the Basque Research and Technology Alliance. We collaborate with companies and institutions to improve their competitiveness, people’s quality of life and achieve sustainable growth. We do it thanks to people who are passionate about technology and committed to building a better society.
Our Mission: To transform technological research into prosperity.
Our Vision: To be agents of transformation of companies and society for their adaptation to the challenges of a changing future.

We work with an increasingly strategic business relationship model based on trust, collaboration, and a shared technological approach, whereby our main scopes of action are: smart manufacturing, digital transformation, energy transition, sustainable mobility, Personalised health, and the urban ecosystem.
We are the first private Spanish organisation in contracting, participation, and leadership in the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme and we are ranked third in European patent applications.

Role in project

Tecnalia will perform bonding/welding experiments and tests for adhesive/prepreg and new thermoplastics, including the validation of repair in terms of mechanical behaviour and accelerated ageing tests

Front Technologies

FRONT TECHNOLOGIES

Front Technologies Ltd was founded by Dr Jianxin Gao in June 2020. As a tech start-up, the Company is dedicated to R&D of engineering techniques related to inspection, testing and measurement of structural integrity of engineering components and structures, as well as biomedical engineering, medical devices etc. Our mission is to develop cutting-edge engineering solutions and harnesses technological advances to produce innovative products to serve the industry.

Role in project:

Leading development of an advanced inspection system (shearography + thermography + laser heating)
Leading exploitation and dissemination activities
Assist in system integration and testing

University of Leeds

UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS

Established in 1904, the University of Leeds is one of the largest universities in the UK. It is part of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities and is renowned globally for the quality of its research and teaching.

The University has been successful in conducting interdisciplinary and impact-orientated research to address challenges at regional, national and global levels, and attracting prestigious research funding (rank second in the UK for the number of Newton and Global Challenge and Research Fund (GCRF) awards and third for the value of these awards, top ten for UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) funding).

In the ROMAIN project, the Chair of Smart Composite Materials and Textile Innovation, Prof Yu Shi from Leeds Institute of Textile and Colouring (LITAC), is leading the team working on the work package for robotic repair.

The Leeds Institute of Textiles and Colour (LITAC) is a world-leading research institute bringing together multi-disciplinary academic expertise in design, technology, science and engineering. The institute works collaboratively with partners globally to tackle important research challenges across textiles, colour and fashion.

LITAC’s expertise is built on a history of nearly 150 years of research in textile technology and colour science, working together with industry, charities and Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) – including some of the world’s most well-known organisations and brands.

As a collaborative research institute, LITAC works with partners to create solutions that address the needs of industry, society and the environment. LITAC develops new materials, processes, manufacturing methods, digital tools and technology, and informs decision-making.

Prof Shi with his team will develop the rapid welding for composite repair and assessment of wind turbine blades, as well as the exploration for integration with robotic system and field testing at the wind farm by the end of the project. Prof Yu Shi is also working with the research team to develop the scientific outcomes as expected deliverables aimed at high-quality journals and conferences.

Role in project:

polymeric material study and solution for rapid welding
optimisation of heating elements and welding process for repair efficiency and quality
multi-repair by re-welding testing and assessment
robotic solution and integration.

NEWS AND EVENTS

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 101070320. UK participants are supported by UKRI grant numbers [10040386] (Front Technologies Ltd) and [10040791] (University of Leeds).