Wind Turbine Inspection Mission Creator for Litchi

[DJ Wes]

I was approached by someone who requested help in creating a mission that could be used to inspect wind turbines. He provided details on how the flight should be configured. After manually creating a mission for him as a proof of concept, I decided to automate the process by creating an application that would create the mission based on the dimensions of the wind turbine.



At one point during our email conversations, for unknown reasons, the person who requested this assistance stopped responding to my email. My last few email messages to him went unanswered.

I am now left with a finished “wind turbine inspection mission creator” application without it being fully tested with an actual wind turbine by the person who requested it. I’m not sure how useful this application will be to others but I’m going to make it available anyway. If anyone finds this useful, please let me know. I am especially interested to work with anyone who would like to test such a mission with a wind turbine and provide feedback.

Litchi Mission Utilities

Wes Barris

www.litchiutilities.com

 

[RodPad]

Wow, he had an awesome idea.

There is a bunch that start east of me takes an hour to get there.

What a don't remember if they turn with the wind (I would think yes)

But, they are not supposed to not get over a certain speed, the scary part to me you can't tell what the wind speed is or gust would be at the time of the mission.

Rod ..

 

[GFields]

Thanks, Wes for sharing. I bet someone will be able to use it and provide feedback

 

[Ralph thompson]

If someone is serious about doing this as a business then they need not just the ability to capture a bunch of images which would be time-consuming to handle. They also need the work flow to support the client. Check out like this company

Wind Turbines

Extend the life of your turbines and blades with AI image analysis and our live Blade Diagram. The perfect tool for wind turbine inspection.

scopito.com

 

[RodPad]

@Ralph thompson
This is some good info!

Building a Litchi mission for what the guy was asking for, is still pretty cool to me.
A challenge!

Rod ..

 

[Nifty]

Wow, he had an awesome idea.

There is a bunch that start east of me takes an hour to get there.

What a don't remember if they turn with the wind (I would think yes)

But, they are not supposed to not get over a certain speed, the scary part to me you can't tell what the wind speed is or gust would be at the time of the mission.

Rod ..

Turbine operation is controlled by a Cup Anenometer measuring the wind speed at the generator height. Usually shut down if the wind is constantly over 60kph.

 

[YoshiBlue]

The challenge is tower height, blade length and yaw of the blade (direction in to the wind). I haven't looked at the litchi, but there are a number of software solutions (vHive, NearthLab, etc.) that claim to 'automate' your flight. We have much better success flying these manually, and can complete a single blade inspection (4 passes) on average in 9 minutes. We then turn the blade and do the next. We actually perform the inspection with the blade in the 6 o'clock position to mitigate high winds. I will definitely take this litchi along next time and give it a shot! Scheduled for late March...