World’s first: Drones inspect offshore wind turbines while spinning

A Danish startup, Quali Drone, has achieved a world-first by completing the first-ever contact-free, autonomous drone inspection of operational offshore wind turbine blades without shutting down the turbines. This breakthrough was realized through the AQUADA-GO project, a collaboration involving Quali Drone, offshore wind operator RWE, Statkraft, TotalEnergies, DTU, and Energy Cluster Denmark. Traditionally, blade inspections require turbines to be stopped, causing costly downtime, lost power generation, and safety risks for workers. The new drone technology, tested offshore at RWE’s Rødsand 2 Offshore Wind Farm, allows real-time scanning of rotating blades, significantly reducing downtime, costs, and CO2 emissions while enhancing safety. The drone integrates advanced hardware with AI-powered image analysis, including infrared imaging and deep learning algorithms developed at DTU Wind Energy. This AI model detects both surface and subsurface blade defects by continuously learning from new inspection data. Equipped with visual cameras, thermography, and computer vision, the