the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
A Survey on Applications of Small Uncrewed Aircraft Systems for Offshore Wind Farms
Robert Sasse
C. Alexander Hirst
Eric Frew
Brian Argrow
Abstract. Offshore wind farms are attractive energy sources due to the abundancy of wind resources close to population centers. Nevertheless, offshore locations present unique challenges for atmospheric observation and turbine inspection which are essential for wind farm design and maintenance. Small uncrewed aircraft systems (sUAS) are well suited for solving many difficulties inherent to offshore sites. In the past decade, sUAS have risen as a versatile and cost-effective platform for a large variety of scientific and commercial operations relating to atmospheric observation and infrastructure inspection. Most sUAS fall into one of two classes: fixed-wing or rotorcraft. Fixed-wing aircraft offer high endurance and range at the cost of constrained maneuverability. Rotorcraft are agile and user-friendly platforms, but offer limited endurance. We present a survey on the challenges and opportunities of utilizing fixed-wing and rotorcraft sUAS for wind resource assessment, operational observation, and inspection of offshore wind farms.
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Robert Sasse et al.
Status: open (until 05 Oct 2023)
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RC1: 'Comment on wes-2023-87', Anonymous Referee #1, 17 Sep 2023
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Sasse et al. make an attempt for a survey on applications of small UAS for offshore wind energy applications. It is certainly interesting to elude on that topic and there is a big potential in using the systems for that purpose. However, the survey seems to be premature, especially because use-cases for UAS for offshore applications have not really been established and are only just developing. The scope of the survey here is not very clearly defined and the shown cases probably do not show a complete picture of the market. Especially the market for inspection is much larger than the few cases that are shown here from within the research community.
It seems that the authors have a stronger expertise in atmospheric science. For that reason, I would recommend to focus on that aspect in the manuscript and go into some more detail and analysis of the potential, the challenges and the prospects of the technology.Â
The sections about inspection are not reflecting the state of the art and the full market of solutions. A simple google search of "wind turbine inspection drone" provides a long list of companies providing services in the field: "flyability.com", "aerialtronics.com", "skyspecs.com", "equinoxsdrones.com", "iberdrola.com". These are only the five first ones.
For this reason I cannot recommend the manuscript for publication in WES at this point, because it might give a wrong impression of the state of the art.
General comments:
- Why does the study emphasize offshore applications? Many of the showed studies are actually onshore and UAS may have significant advantages there as well. Wind ressource assessment is significantly more challenging in complex terrain.
- Two main applications are regarded in the survey: inspection and wind ressource assessment. Other applications such as the delivery of small replacement parts are not regarded, but are commercially of interest and discussed in research and industry.
- The introduction is mostly about atmospheric measurements. Hardly any comprehensive review of inspection is provided.
- For a survey of the potential of UAS for offshore wind, I miss some analysis on cost and benefit. This will eventually define if a technology can be commercially successful.Specific comments:
- p.2, l.60: Even though UAS were envisioned for AWAKEN, i am not aware that any were deployed so far. Actually, manned research aircraft are planned instead.
- p.3
- p.8, l.152: lidar, not radar
- p.9, Table 4: Europe: It is not true that a PDRA is neccessary. If none exists for that use-case, a specific operations risk assessment (SORA) can be made according to the defined process. The PDRA is only meant to speed up the process for common applications.
- p.10, l.207: what does it mean "it is believed that...". Were these observations made or not?
- p.15, l.264: I think the first applications for copters for inspection go much further back than the given references.
- p.15, ll.269: it remains very unclear what kind of inspection was made with footage of the campus from overflights.
- p.16, l.287: were only iced regions photographed? How was it decided? Manually?
- p.17, l.317: this is a key problem of the manuscript: "we believe..". In a research article, some qualified statement should be possible.Â
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-2023-87-RC1
Robert Sasse et al.
Robert Sasse et al.
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