Research Overview

Traditional inspection approaches for solar and wind farms require are labor intensive and time-consuming techniques. The experts have to be dispatched to the fields, capture the photos, and perform the inspection tasks. In some cases, the image may not be complete and clear as needed, which causes difficulties for further diagnosis and damages analysis. Today, many solar and wind farms are equipped with various IoT sensors; they can measure vibration, weather, and so on. However, the operators prefer to have remote visual inspections, which is fast-deployment and visible solution. As the advanced digital technologies enable access to the required data and achieve visualization, the enhanced inspection and analytics approaches can achieve the operators' common goals, including resource optimization, process optimization, and performance optimization. The research study covers advancements in drones, RGB/infrared cameras, Artificial Intelligence, 5G, cloud computing, AR/VR, Digital Twins and Robots for use in solar and wind farm inspection.