Zurich, Switzerland, 06 February 2019 – Sulzer & Schmid Laboratories AG, a Swiss company pioneering next-generation technology for the inspection of wind turbine rotor blades, announced today that it has launched a new highly competitive inspection platform. The company’s new 3DXTM HD product has been developed as a cost-effective solution to cope with large volumes of high definition blade inspections.
Based on the compact and flexible DJI M-210 drone, Sulzer Schmid’s latest innovation delivers high performance and fully autonomous drone inspections at a significantly lower cost compared to its existing 3DXTM Ultra-HD product based on the DJI’s M-600 drone.
Thanks to the new capabilities offered by unmanned aerial vehicles, the market for drone-based rotor blade inspections has boomed in recent years. “Our technology produces high-definition image quality that is superior to any other inspection method,” explained Tom Sulzer, Co-founder of Sulzer Schmid. “Our drone inspections offer a myriad of benefits: they are automated and therefore immune to human error, repeatable and consistent in quality while covering 100% of the blade. Most importantly, the fully digital end-to-end process creates a foundation for trend analysis and predictive maintenance” he continued.
Depending on the type of inspections and their requirements, wind turbine OEMs, wind asset owners and O&M service providers will now be able to choose the technology that best suits their needs. Whereas critical inspections, such as end-of-warranty or change of ownership, call for the superior images provided by the 3DXTM Ultra-HD product, regular inspections can now be carried out with great efficiency by the 3DXTM HD platform at a fraction of the cost.
