Sulzer Schmid Unveils New Ultra-Portable Drones for Wind Turbine Blade Inspections

Swiss company Sulzer & Schmid Laboratories AG has launched its new 3DX™ SmartPilot drone solution, specifically developed to enable inspection campaigns in geographies where site access or complex logistical barriers require quick and highly portable blade inspection solutions.

The operators can now rely on the 3DX™ SmartPilot to deliver semi-autonomous drone inspections using portable equipment that can be brought onsite easily and deployed immediately.

Commenting on the development, Tom Sulzer, Co-founder and CEO of Sulzer Schmid, said “the compact design of 3DX™ SmartPilot makes it particularly well-suited for inspections of wind farms operating in very remote locations but also for ad-hoc inspections. It’s like carrying out inspections from a backpack. Deployable worldwide, our new plug-and-play solution is highly flexible and will overcome most logistical and customs restrictions. Once onsite, it can be deployed instantly.”

The 3DX™ SmartPilot Solution is powered by Sulzer Schmid’s, UAV technology specialist for wind blade inspections, proprietary software and compatible with most small off-the-shelf DJI drones.

It has been designed to deliver semi-autonomous inspections carried out by a drone pilot with the assistance of the 3DX™ software to ensure optimal flight paths. The inspection data has been uploaded, processed, and analysed in the 3DX™ Blade Platform, the most advanced data management system for blade inspections.

“This is the most economical solution because it only requires lower-cost hardware without proprietary payload. At the same time, it delivers all the value of the 3DX™ Blade Platform with no compromise on data processing and smart analytics. Thanks to this latest innovation, we can now ensure that the data of wind assets, no matter where they are located, is captured cost-effectively within Sulzer Schmid’s stringent quality standards,” concluded Tom Sulzer.