Moving mechanism for a wind turbine blade inspection and repair robot

Abstract

An increase in the number of wind turbines for power generation increases necessary inspection and repair work. Specifically, inspection and repair of the leading-edge part of the blades is severely required, and the number is also high. Inspection and repair work is dangerous and costly. Therefore, we propose a novel robot that can move in a vertical direction by using the blade as a guide while touching the leading-edge of the wind turbine blade. This method involves ensuring that the size of the robot is sufficiently small to be transported by humans, and the robot is controlled in a simple way by only using existing facilities, and thus, it is possible to perform contact work.