RWE and Quali Drone Demonstrate Autonomous Drone Inspection of Rotating Offshore Wind Turbine Blades at Rødsand 2

Danish startup Quali Drone, in collaboration with offshore wind developer and operator RWE and several other partners, has successfully inspected offshore wind turbine blade damages using autonomous drone technology while the blades rotate. The demonstration took place at the Rødsand 2 Offshore Wind Farm, operated by RWE since 2010 and located south off the coast of Lolland, Denmark, and was described as the first time ever the operational concept has been demonstrated offshore. Jesper Smit, CEO of Quali Drone, said: “We have proven that it is possible to autonomously inspect offshore wind turbines with a drone of a certain size equipped with a visual camera, while the turbine is in operation.” Marcus Mejborn, General Manager of Rødsand 2 Offshore Wind Farm at RWE, said: “For the first time, we have successfully carried out a drone inspection of offshore wind turbines in operation.” Blade damage inspections are usually carried out when the turbine has been stopped. In the AQUADA-GO project, the partners developed a drone technology for automated, contact-free, real-time blade damage detection while the turbine is spinning, which can help save turbine downtime. The project is based on the AQUADA technology developed in DTU Wind Energy's laboratory. The core idea is to combine drone technology with thermography and computer vision to detect surface damage and potential subsurface fractures on operational offshore wind turbine blades. DTU has developed an AI model that helps the drone automatically identify blade abnormalities to indicate critical damage using AI algorithms and infrared imaging, and the model is trained and improved with new inspection data each time the drone is deployed at wind farms. The offshore demonstration itself used visual drone footage of blade damage on the surface. The technology had been demonstrated several times onshore by the project partners, which include Quali Drone, RWE, Statkraft, TotalEnergies, DTU and Energy Cluster Denmark. The AQUADA-GO innovation project runs from 2022 to March 2026 with a total budget of DKK 17,796,010 and is supported by EUDP, the Energy Technology Development and Demonstration Program.