{"id":39308,"date":"2022-12-30T20:05:44","date_gmt":"2022-12-31T01:05:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=39308"},"modified":"2022-12-30T20:05:44","modified_gmt":"2022-12-31T01:05:44","slug":"these-robots-crawl-all-over-wind-turbines-so-humans-dont-have-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=39308","title":{"rendered":"These robots crawl all over wind turbines so humans don’t have to"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Aerones<\/a> uses robots to repair, inspect, clean, and ice-proof wind turbines, and the Latvia-based startup just raised $38.9 million in funding.<\/p>\n

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TechCrunch<\/a><\/em> reported that the funding was raised this month \u201cfrom dozens of undisclosed investors.\u201d And according to its SEC filing<\/a>, it looks as though Aerones is hoping to bring in another $2.5 million.<\/p>\n

The Riga-headquartered Aerones, which was founded in 2015 and backed by US startup accelerator Y Combinator, has a US office in San Jose, California. The company, according to its website, has serviced 5,000 onshore wind turbines and 12,000 blades in 19 countries to date. (There are nearly 71,000 wind turbines in the United States alone, so Aerones has a lot of potential customers.)<\/p>\n

Aerones is working with 9 out of 10 of the world\u2019s largest wind companies, including Siemens Gamesa, Enel, GE, and Vestas.<\/p>\n

In April, the company announced<\/a> that it had raised $9 million in seed funding. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s also developed an offshore robot prototype<\/a>, which is co-funded by the European Union and is in the process of testing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Aerones\u2019s patented robotic tech is compact. According to the company, it can be \u201ctransported in a single van,\u201d and once it\u2019s up the turbine, three Aerones technicians operate it from the ground.<\/p>\n

The company says it \u201cinspects and maintains turbines up to\u00a0six times faster\u00a0and up to\u00a040% more cost efficiently\u00a0than humans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turbine blades can develop cracks or erode. The robots can inspect the blades with ultrasound scanning and cameras, and they can also repair them by cleaning and then applying filler to eroded surfaces or cracks. They can also apply protection coating to help prevent future damage and a special coating to prevent ice from forming on the turbines in colder climates.<\/p>\n

The robots can also clean the wind turbines by power washing them with liquid detergent, and funnels beneath the blades collect the liquid for so it can be used again.<\/p>\n

CTO and cofounder Janis Putrams said in April:<\/p>\n

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We recently released an internal inspection robot that crawls and scans inside wind turbine blades and provides digital twin inspection data with unprecedented detail, and a cleaning solution that removes dirt and oil from turbine towers and blades very effectively.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This short video demonstrates how the robots work:<\/p>\n

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