Blueye Robotics unveils underwater drone for Offshore Wind Industries

Blueye Robotics announced that it has developed an underwater drone that will allow offshore wind companies to perform inspection of underwater structures and power cables without the need for divers or remotely operated vehicles.

Blueye Robotics said that Blueye Pioneer underwater drone is equipped with powerful thrusters that allows it to operate in heavy currents and dive to water depths of 150m. Live video is transmitted via a thin umbilical cable to the surface and thereafter wirelessly to the user. The drone is compact (45cm x 25cm x 35cm) and weighs only 7kg.

Blueye Robotics CEO, Erik Dyrkoren said that they  are providing owners and operators of offshore wind farms with an industrial drone that can be operated by everyone capable of using a smartphone or a tablet PC. Perhaps just as important is that it is priced reasonably at approximately USD 4-5,000 per drone system. This will allow for several drones at each offshore wind farm to make inspections even quicker, which in turn means higher operational reliability and uptime for each windmill.

He further added that in principle, array cables and export cables represent the cash flow from offshore wind farms. To be able to conduct more regular visual inspections of these cables and the surrounding seabed can give operators the opportunity to address potential issues before they become a problem. Combined with lower than usual capex and an opex close to zero, they believe this underwater drone can make visual inspections more frequent and less cumbersome for operators of offshore wind farms.

Image Source: Blueye Robotics