Paper accepted @ IEEE Access

Titel:

In-Service Wind Turbine Blade Inspection: A Multi-UAV Architecture Design and Preliminary Validation

Autoren:

Mario Leopold, Klaus Schöffmann, Farzad Tashtarian

Venue:

IEEE Access

 

Abstract:

Wind turbine blade inspections are critical for ensuring structural integrity and minimizing operational downtime. However, existing methods, such as single Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) inspections, are limited by trade-offs among coverage, resolution, operational constraints, and often require turbine shutdown. This paper presents a multi-UAV inspection architecture design for in-service wind turbine blade inspection. The proposed architecture design provides a scalable framework for multi-UAV-based inspection of wind turbines during operation, enabling data acquisition without halting the turbine. The system distributes tasks across multiple UAVs, enabling simultaneous global observation, close-range surface imaging, and deflection detection. A ground station is introduced to coordinate the system, aggregate multi-view data, and offload computationally intensive processing. By separating global and local perception tasks, the architecture addresses key limitations of single-UAV systems and supports synchronized data acquisition during regular wind turbine operation. The core components of the system are implemented and evaluated using a scaled wind turbine model. Results demonstrate stable, persistent blade identification, reliable deflection estimation during rotation, and a component-level preliminary validation on embedded hardware platforms in terms of computational and energy requirements.