WISP

In the WISP project, four partners develop a drone-based sensor system for the inspection of wind turbines. The goal is to digitize and measure hard-to-reach locations such as the rotor blades, hub, tower and nacelle with unprecedented accuracy. An optical close-range scanner for drones provides high-resolution 3D data with millimeter accuracy for this purpose. The 3D scans are complemented by high-resolution color images and close-range thermograms that allow to inspect the machining of the parts by revealing their heat-transfer properties. Further the UAV is eqipped with GPS, IMU and LiDAR-scanner that allows tracking of the drone and mapping of the arera.

The fusion of the sensor systems creates new possibilities for data analysis: in addition to independently searching for faults in each of the 3 data sets (3D data, thermal data, RGB data), it is possible to search for correlations between the anomalies found in order to classify damage more reliably and in greater detail than was previously possible. This provides operators with a multi-layered basis for decision-making and planning.