New Rope Climbing Robot Inspects Wind Turbines Better Than Humans

From TreeHugger:

How do you inspect wind turbine blades for damage? With this cool new robot, obviously! At least that's what it's developers at at the Fraunhofer Institute for Factory Operation and Automation are hoping. It's called the RIWEA and, pulling itself up a rope system, can work on onshore or offshore turbines of any size, climbing up turbines to discover damage too small to be detected by the human eye. Considering that by one account 60% of wind turbines in the US are behind on regular maintenance such as oil changes and gearbox lubrication, let alone inspection of blades for defects, a potential time and money saving device like this could certainly help out.

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