General Electric Company

General Electric Renovables Espana, S.l.

John Robert Hoare

Shiraj Sen

Todd William Danko

Douglas Roy Forman

Judith Ann Guzzo

Justin Michael Foehner

Huan Tan

Romano Patrick

Steven Robert Gray

Charles Burton Theurer

Yakov Polishchuk

In accordance with certain implementations of the present approach, a reduced, element-by-element, data set is transmitted between a robot having a sensor suite and a control system remote from the robot that is configured to display a representation of the environment local to the robot. Such a scheme may be useful in allowing a human operator remote from the robot to perform an inspection using the robot while the robot is on-site with an asset and the operator is off-site. In accordance with the present approach, an accurate representation of the environment in which the robot is situated is provided for the operator to interact with.

Dynamically representing a changing environment over a communications channel

A robotic access system including a robotic fan crawler configured to traverse a surface of a wind turbine and perform one or more tasks. The robotic fan crawler includes one or more fans to adhere the robotic fan crawler to the surface of the wind turbine and one or more driving components to drive the robotic fan crawler along the surface of the wind turbine. The robotic fan crawler further includes one or more omnidirectional cameras operable to capture images of the surface from multiple perspectives during an inspection activity and data collection period. One or more steering components provide directional changes of the robotic fan crawler during operation. A tether cable is coupled to the robotic fan crawler and a tether management system to provide one or more of power, communications, grounding, supplies and distance calculations.

Robotic access system including robotic fan crawler for wind blade inspection and maintenance

A system and method for performing a task on a LPS of a wind turbine includes a robotic testing device having a plurality of clamping arms and a LPS test probe coupled to a robotic end effector. The robotic testing device can be positioned around an outer perimeter of a rotor blade of the wind turbine. A cable, coupled to an up-tower anchor point, is attached to the robotic testing device and extends between the anchor point and a support surface. A lightning receptor of the LPS is between the up-tower anchor point and the tower support surface. As the cable is displaced, the robotic testing device moves to a position at which it is clamped to the rotor blade, adjacent the lightning receptor. The end effector moves to position the test probe in contact with the lightning receptor to conduct the test on the LPS.

System and method for lighting protection system inspection

A method including positioning a modular robotic component proximate an area of interest on a surface of a wind turbine. The modular robotic component including a plurality of modules that perform a plurality of tasks. The method further including inspecting the area of interest with the modular robotic component for an indication requiring at least one of repair or upgrade and operating the modular robotic component to perform the plurality of tasks sequentially as the modular robotic component moves along the surface of the wind turbine. A modular robotic component and system including the modular robotic component are disclosed.

System and method for wind blade inspection, repair and upgrade

A system for use in maintaining a wind turbine blade includes a motorized apparatus sized to fit within an interior cavity of the wind turbine blade and configured to travel along a length of the wind turbine blade on an interior surface when the wind turbine blade is in a substantially horizontal position. The motorized apparatus includes a body, a drive system configured to move the body, and a camera coupled to the body. The camera is configured to capture at least one image of the interior surface. The system also includes a controller configured to map the at least one image onto a model of the interior surface. The system also includes an operator interface including a display device. The operator interface is configured to display the model on the display device and receive user input allowing an operator to interact with the model.

Systems and methods for maintaining wind turbine blades

A system and method for inspecting, repairing and upgrading wind turbine rotor blades of a wind turbine. The system including deploying one or more cables via an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), a balloon, a ballistic mechanism or a catapult to position the one or more cables in draping engagement with a portion of the wind turbine. A climbing robot is positioned to ascend the one or more cables and perform a task related to inspecting for indications, repair of indications or upgrading the rotor blade. A slave robot system, disposed at the base location and anchored to the one or more cables, provides modulation of the cables for positioning of the climbing robot relative to the wind turbine as it ascends and descends the one or more cables. After completion of the task, the climbing robot descends the one or more cables and the cables are removed from the wind turbine.

A system for performing industrial tasks includes a robot and a computing device. The robot includes one or more sensors that collect data corresponding to the robot and an environment surrounding the robot. The computing device includes a user interface, a processor, and a memory. The memory includes instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to receive the collected data from the robot, generate a virtual recreation of the robot and the environment surrounding the robot, receive inputs from a human operator controlling the robot to demonstrate an industrial task. The system is configured to learn how to perform the industrial task based on the human operator's demonstration of the task, and perform, via the robot, the industrial task autonomously or semi-autonomously.

Systems and method for robotic learning of industrial tasks based on human demonstration

The present approach employs a context-aware simulation platform to facilitate control of a robot remote from an operator. Such a platform may use the prior domain/task knowledge along with the sensory feedback from the remote robot to infer context and may use inferred context to dynamically change one or both of simulation parameters and a robot-environment-task state being simulated. In some implementations, the simulator instances make forward predictions of their state based on task and robot constraints. In accordance with this approach, an operator may therefore issue a general command or instruction to a robot and based on this generalized guidance, the actions taken by the robot may be simulated, and the corresponding results visually presented to the operator prior to evaluate prior to the action being taken.

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Latham, NY, United States of America

John Robert Hoare