As wind turbines get larger, older and installed offshore more, drone-based inspection is becoming an integral part of maintaining assets in this growing segment of the renewable energy industry. Clobotics Holdings Ltd. has acquired AtSite to make it a fully owned subsidiary of the Clobotics Group. The acquisition brings together two industry leading technology platforms, accelerating artificial intelligence-based solutions and fueling the ongoing digitalization of the global wind O&M market .
AtSite is a front runner in visual inspection of wind turbine blades. Since 2013, the firm has inspected thousands of wind turbines for clients all over the world. Its use of dedicated blade specialists has resulted in a unique and industry-leading standard of defect categorization, as well as reporting solutions which are now widely used by wind park owners and OEMs all over Europe.
Clobotics, with teams based in Seattle and Shanghai, has a strong track record in drone-based inspection of wind turbines and AI-based analysis of the resulting images. Its technology allows faster, safer, and lower-cost inspections as well as high-quality reporting delivered faster than any other alternative on the market.
“Clobotics is an AIoT company — wind turbine inspection and analysis are a perfect application of our technology,” said George Yan, CEO of Clobotics. “The AtSite team’s domain expertise and customer relationships will make our joint product offering more compelling and allow it to scale up faster.”
“AtSite has always focused on using state-of-the-art technology to help our customers better manage their wind assets,” said Mads Rasmussen, CEO of AtSite. “As part of Clobotics, we will use their Windspector 3.0 platform to inform customers on the condition of their turbine blades faster, more accurately and at lower cost than ever before.”
The Windspector 3.0 solution starts with a fully autonomous drone that flies around the turbine and builds a 3D picture of all the blades while capturing high resolution images. Inspection is completed in minutes, rather than hours. Images of blades are then automatically analyzed, annotated, and reported on the cloud-based client portal the very next day. Using the portal, customers can easily track the entire lifecycle of turbines, see the progression of damage and view trend reports on individual turbines or their entire fleet.
Danish consul general in Shanghai, Mr. Jakob Linulf, spoke highly of the acquisition, “Denmark has a long-term sustainable green energy plan. It has transformed the country from a place where all the energy used to be imported to achieving its own energy independence. In addition, it has also become an EU and global energy and climate change leader. Denmark recently adopted a climate law to cut emissions by 70% by 2030. The Clobotics’ acquisition in Denmark is a great opportunity to integrate China’s world-leading artificial intelligence technology with Denmark’s mature new energy technologies.”
As part of the acquisition AtSite will be renamed Clobotics A/S and function as the European headquarters for the Clobotics Wind Group. The entire team will stay on and continue to serve current and new customers.
About Clobotics
Clobotics is a global leader in AIoT solutions for the wind power and retail industries. Clobotics’ end-to-end solutions combine computer vision, artificial intelligence/machine learning, and data analytics software with different hardware form factors, including autonomous drones, mobile applications, and other Internet of Things devices to help companies automate time-intensive operational processes, increase efficiencies, and boost the bottom line through the use of real-time, data-driven insights and analysis. Clobotics was named to the CNBC Upstart 100 List in 2018 and was highlighted as an important computer vision solution provider for the industrial sector in the latest Bloomberg NEF report on computer vision. To learn more, visit www.clobotics.com
About AtSite
AtSite, based in Esbjerg, Denmark was founded in 2013 by Mads Obling Rasmussen and was one of the early pioneering inspection service companies supporting the offshore wind industry, and has today become a significant player in the wind turbine inspections sector.