Martin Huus Bjerge, CEO of Rope Robotics, joined us to talk about their BR-8 robot that currently is capable of repairing leading edges of wind turbine blades. WATCH ON YOUTUBE HERE.
Rope Robotics got its start while Martin was working for Siemens Gamesa, and has since grown through various robot iterations and evolutions to the BR-8 model today, which has proven its technology in wet repair of turbine blade leading edges. Listen as he explains the origin of his company, how a great manager at Siemens helped incubate them in the early stages, and his vision for autonomous repair, wind technician jobs and collaboration within the industry. Check out their YouTube channel for more of the BR-8 robot in action.
This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!
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Transcript EP58 – Martin Huus Bjerge from Rope Robotics
Dan: This episode is brought to you by Weather Guard Lightning Tech at weather guard, we make wind turbine lightning protection easy. If you’re a wind farm operator, stop settling for damaged turbine blades and constant downtime. Get your uptime back with our strike table lightning protection system. Learn more in today’s show notes or visit weather guard wind.com/strike tape.
Allen: Welcome back
Dan: I’m Allen Hall. I’m Dan Blewett. And this is the uptime podcast where we talk about wind energy engineering, lightning protection, and ways to keep your wind turbines running
All right. Welcome back to the uptime podcast. I’m your co-host Dan Blewett on today’s show. We’ve got a great guest Martin Huus Bjerge from Rope Robotics is here. He is going to talk about his company, his technology, as they are outward, repairing leading edges of winter and blades all over the world.
So Allen really interesting discussion today with Martin. They are doing a lot of cool stuff with robotics, helping to get these leading edges cleaned up. Uh, what were some of your takeaways from today’s talk?
Allen: Well, Martin and robotics have evolved the robot technology over the last couple, like yours to be very efficient at removing old leaning edge protection, and then cleaning the blade and applying a much more resilient, uh, leading edge erosion surface to two blades.
And that’s taken several years of. Engineering time technology building two to come to the platform they have today. And that platform is really versatile. And I think that’s the key to what rope robotics has done is that they have a technology that can be commanded from halfway around the world. Uh, so not only can I do the repairs and if I had all this data, it can also be commanded remotely.
So it’s just an extremely versatile tool. And I think that’s the part I pulled out from Martin was. How good this technology is because right now we’re repairing leading edges with a tech group technicians. That’s what we’re doing. And it’s sort of a manual process and, and, and Martins company is going to make it a lot more
Dan: automated.
Yeah. So in today’s talk, you’ll hear a lot about the, the actual sort of nuts and bolts, I guess, quite literally the, the technology in the robot itself, how it works, how they apply their solution, all that sort of stuff. Uh, also about how the company found was founded, which is really interesting. So they were sort of incubated, uh, by Siemens, uh, cause Martin was a, um, a long time employee of Siemens.
So he cut his teeth, learning about all the. All the ins and outs of a, of a big, uh, obviously wind energy company. And when he had this idea of brought to his management and they said, yeah, we actually support you. Um, you know, getting your company off the ground and, you know, doing some R and D and they were really, like I said, helped incubate his company and that he still has a strong, uh, uh, sort of partnership with, with Siemens, which is, which is really unique and interesting.
Um, and that’s one of the big challenges. A lot of small businesses face is. Getting their idea from, you know, from, from concept to prototype, to actually out in the field. Um, so that evolution with him is really interesting and he goes into that. And then lastly, we talk a lot about, you know, jobs and automation and how, you know, people do fear that robotics and drones are going to take the jobs of wind techs, but really more and more people, pretty much everyone we’ve talked about.
Uh, and I think Alan, you correct me if I’m wrong. I think you agree as well that. You know, automation is probably good. It’s going to allow people to have easier jobs and do the same work and also open up a lot new of new ones in data analytics and all these associated Jason kind of fields. I mean, is that how you sort of see the way robotics is going to interact with, uh, you know, the humans that control and.
You still have to supervise and take over and, and monitor. Yeah. Well, yeah,
Allen: there’s definitely gonna be more jobs in the robotics field and more technicians needed the growth in the wind turbine industry. It’s gonna overwhelm any advancements in automation. The number of wind turbines is going to be put off shore and onshore are going to explode in the next 10 years.
And with that, it’s going to come at a huge need for technicians and then technicians. They can operate robots that’s what’s going to happen. So it it’s, it’s an evolving technology. And if, if you’re a rope technician now, uh, gaining that extra piece of skillset of being able to also control a robot and understand what the new robots that are coming online are, is going to be.
Make you more valuable, it’s going to increase your pay is going to expand your horizons. And those are all good things.
Dan: Yeah. And I think at the end of the day, it’s not like C3 PO is coming, you know, to, to take your job. It’s it’s, these are new tools that you’ll use on the job. Just like a new saw, you know, Using your iPad.
You know, we didn’t use iPads on construction sites years ago, years ago, right? This is all just simply, it’s a new thing to make your job easier. And that’s, I think an interesting takeaway from all this. So without further ado, let’s jump to our conversation today with Martin Huus Bjerge with Rope Robotics
Martin: all
Dan: right. Well, Martin, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for sitting down and chatting with us.
Martin: Thank you very much pleasure to
Dan: be here. So we were just chatting off camera that this makes our introduction really easy, uh, to talk about the bra, which is your current model of robots right there in frame with you.
So. Take us through it a little bit. I mean, that thing looks beefy. It looks cool. Like we know a little bit about what it can do. We’re excited to hear more. So tell us a little bit about the, the bra.
Martin: Thank you very much. So the VRA is a, is a robot that, uh, we developed here in robotics. With the purpose of doing blight maintenance.
And, uh, first off we started out with, uh, looking at the leading edge erosion problem. Uh, and so, so far we’ve kind of, we’ve made all the tools for the robot to be able to, to perform that tasks. So that means we can, we can. Navigate the blade. We can get up there, move around on the blade. We can do some cleaning of the, uh, of the road area.
We can sand it, we can prepare everything. We can apply some coding. And then in that way, fix, uh, rework eroded blades. And then on top of that, the idea is with the robot that we will be able to do many other tasks and blades in the future. So, uh, the basic structure of the robot is that it’s a modular platform.
So right now we have all the tools for the leading edge erosion repair. But we will be able to equip them with all kinds of different tools so we can fix pretty much any problem on a, on a blade in the future. So that’s kind of the, the very basic and simple part of the robot so far. Okay. And,
Dan: and correct me if I’m wrong, but leading edge erosion is your main focus right now.
Martin: That is our main focus for sure at the moment. And, and, and this is basically we did some, we did some business studies and market studies, uh, in the very beginning of the company and looking into this and, and here, it was easy to see that leading edge erosion is pretty much 50% of the whole market of late maintenance at the moment.
So, so that was. Kind of the reason for choosing that, uh, of course you could have chosen other areas of the blades to start with, uh, that might have been easier as well, because I think we got some learnings also with, uh, with that part, it’s fixing a leading edge. It’s not that simple, actually, it’s a quite complex process and, and you need to get it all right before you actually have a product.
So it takes some, it really takes some effort to, to get there, but, uh, It’s a pretty much there now, so we’re ready to go out and repair some blades to the summer. So you can really much forward to, to getting the robot, uh, out there in the market.
Dan: Yeah. So obviously, you know, when you think about what a robot can do, you know, with as little human intervention as possible, um, you know, it’s definitely gonna lend itself to some solutions to problems rather than others.
So you guys are using wet solutions, like you’re not using tapes with the robot. Is that correct? To fix some of these leading edges?
Martin: Yeah. So there’s, I kind of split the solutions for leading edge erosion into three categories. So there’s a, there’s the tape solution, there’s the web solution. And then they’re the, the shell solutions and, and we’re putting ourselves in the wet solution category.
And that’s, we, we did some thoughts in the very beginning. What do you think is the best way to work with a robot? And there became to that web solution is probably. The best and the easiest way to do it with a robot. Um, and of course, in, in the wet area, there are different kinds of, uh, of solutions. We actually, we started out with using some paint coding solutions I actually have.
So this is a yeah, a spray paint that we, so that was what we did in the very beginning, trying to have the robot spray paint, uh, the leading edge. And this is also a LEP. So if it is a strong coding that, uh, That, that works very well and, uh, on the, on the leading edge, but it’s really difficult to control this spray, uh, process when you’re up there on the blade and you have a lot of wind and yeah.
Just makes it very difficult. Yeah. So today we are actually more into, uh, some, some more, uh, You can say, hi, this custody materials and not something you spray on, but, uh, more a, a coding where it’s, uh, you know, where it’s mixed in a mixing tube. And then we are we putting it on with, uh, with a squeaky, like, uh, uh, and scraping it on the blade in that way.
So, so that’s kind of where we ended up and it looks really promising for doing leading edge repair. And we, we’d done a lot of testing here in our, in our workshop where I’m sitting at right now, actually, and we have blades here and we have, uh, now we’ve done a couple of turbines the last couple of weeks and everything looks really promising.
So looking forward to get it, uh, get a lot of turbines done this
Dan: summer. So if you’re, if you’re listening and you’re not watching, so we have a YouTube version as well. I highly suggest you jump over. Cause Martin’s got a good setup here in his workshop. You can see the robot and he’s actually got a couple in frame.
So, uh, we always do a YouTube version in addition to our Spotify, iTunes, you know, all our other podcast platforms, but in this case, Martin’s, he’s crushed it with his background, with his backdrop here. So if you want to check out what he’s working with, um, be sure to hop over to YouTube. So. I mean with leading edge erosion, you know, the, the pitting and the erosion on the edge of the blade is going to vary heavily.
So I feel like that, you know, the thicker viscosity application is you probably found that that was gonna fill cracks a lot better and that are those pits better than the spray modules,
Martin: right? Definitely. Definitely. I think that’s also one of the, with the, with the spray solution we started with there, you need to kind of have a process where you.
You S you sand the blade, you clean it. Then you apply some filler material to kind of rebuild the shape of the blade. And then you do the spray painting with the, with the new, uh, LEP material we using there. You kind of, you basically skip the whole filling process, or you can say that you. Either you skip the filling or just get the paint.
I don’t know which of them you skip, but you basically merged them together. So, so you, you, you take out one process of the whole equation and let’s say it’s really a lot of time when you were repairing the blade as well. So, uh, doing it faster and cheaper and actually getting a better result as well. So a very, very nice.
Dan: So let’s talk about how you got to where you are. So obviously that’s just one good example of, you know, Iterating and learning from, from doing right and, and, and evolving with your, your solution. Let’s talk about the robot as well. So the bra, your current, your current model, what kind of, you know, iterations of that go through?
How long did it take to develop, like, tell us about the platform itself and how you got to where you are?
Martin: So a little bit of history. We started, uh, five years ago, uh, with the company and. Actually before starting the company, there was a lot of, you know, conceptual check, uh, investigations and figuring out exactly how do we do this.
Uh, but in the very beginning we focused on how should we navigate the plate? Uh, so there was, uh, some iterations about how we’ll using ropes to, uh, Carry the weight of the robot and then using Bactrim to make sure we have a stable connection with the blade and we’ve working on various methods for doing that.
And then we actually ended up with a, with a solution where we were kind of moving in small steps, uh, on the plate with the use of vacuum. And it worked, uh, kind of nice and it, we were able to have a stable connection with the blade. Then, uh, from there we developed all the tools and getting that part of the, of the robot up and running.
So now we are able to navigate the play and now we are starting to have the tools to actually. Through the whole repair process. And with that, we came to now we have a solution, we have a robot that’s actually able to do repair of leading edge, but came to the conclusion that we still need some, we need some more speed into this.
It’s able to do it, but it’s not fast enough yet. And that’s where we kind of. Did a little bit of change in the, in the chair strategy on our design. So now we have made a new, uh, navigation, stiff system of the robot is still ropes and vacuum, but it’s now made in the weight. So it can slide on the blades.
So we, we can move. Actually while, uh, working on the plate. So we’re not moving in small steps, but, but we’re moving continuously and we also redesigned the tools. So we can now do the repair continuously. So going from a discrete repair where you’re repairing sections of approximately one leader, now we can do a repair of, uh, like five, six, seven, eight meters in the, in one go.
So, so Martin, the,
Allen: uh, mental improvement of the robot has gotten to this point where now you can do multiple sections of a blade pretty quickly. How does, how does that look like in terms of the steps that you do to apply your, your new wet material? What what’s the process? Yeah,
Martin: so, so the process, uh, is.
Uh, you can say actually quite simple. It’s, uh, you, you sent the plates and, uh, yeah, I have signed the tool here, maybe quite easy for you to see. So this is a, uh, this is a, uh, a tool mounted on the robot. You have, uh, this is Sandy paper on brushes. So this role takes. And you have the you’re deleting each year.
And then you basically just slide up along the leading edge while signing everything, uh, on, on the leading edge. Yes. Is the
Allen: robot doing the, uh, braiding, the pressure side and the suction side of the same time? Or are you doing the pressure side and then coming around to the suction side, how does that.
How does that go on the sanding?
Martin: Yeah. So the very nice thing about this, uh, this tool is that actually does the whole leading edge about pressure leading it and suction side at the same time. So it’s, uh, it’s this, that the shape of this, uh, wheel on the, on the signing tool is taking care of everything.
So we’re taking, uh, with this tool, this current tool we were using taking something like five centimeters to each side of the blade is, uh, taken care of. In one go. So, uh, so when that’s done, then you will do a cleaning process, pretty much the same tool instead of a sandpaper on the, on these processes, just cleaning brushes.
And then we add some Ayesha, pople alcohol. So we get a nice and clean surface. And when that’s done. Then we do the, we apply the LEP coding, and then we have scores. There’s a completely different tool, but a tool that will dispense the material, uh, through the mixing tube and then have a squeegee, uh, yeah, touching the blade and shaping the materials.
You get a nice, smooth surface. Uh, so that’s. The basic process, then we have a, we have a process it’s the same, but we have actually two different LEP application tools for. You can say that the very tip of the blades, the outer half, one meter of the Blake, and then the rest of the blade there, we have a, a different tool to take care of that.
So it’s quite, it’s a, we did a lot of, uh, testing and trying, how do we do this? Because there’s very big difference between the leading edge on the, on the very tip of the blade. And then the rest of the blade is much more narrow and everything. So, uh, so then we decided to go with two different tools for that area.
How
Allen: adaptable is the robot to the different manufacturers plays kind of like a semen blade to the vest displayed to a GE blade. Is your robot adaptable to all the varieties of plates that are in service?
Martin: So that’s, it’s been a target of our design all the way to make it, uh, flexible and adaptable as much as possible.
Uh, we have, uh, we have mainly been working with, uh, with Siemens plates so far. Uh, and that comes a little bit with me having a background in Siemens, some good connections there. Uh, but, uh, but, but that means that’s where we have the most experience so far, but we have been working on some, on some Evelyn plates as well.
Uh, so, so we can work on pretty much anything. And we’re not, uh, you can say, even though we’ve been working on Siemens plates, it’s not because we have the. The, you can say that the cat drawings and everything from the blades, so we can. We are basically we’re working on the blade. Uh, no matter the shape of it.
So it’s, it’s adaptable tools. There is, of course there’s some limitations and I haven’t tried all blades in the world yet, so we probably gonna end up on some plates out there that, uh, give us some hiccups and we need to go back in the, in the lab and do some, a little bit more work on that.
Dan: And then as far as speed, cause you mentioned speed.
Um, you know, how long does it take, uh, you know, your robot and the techs who are going to control it? To do one blade, one turbine, you know, one job, one site like w w what is the current level of speed?
Martin: So, currently we’ve been, uh, we’ve been working with, uh, something like a blade a day, one to two plates a day.
But my expectation is that during this season, uh, we will achieve, uh, three blades a day with a robot. Um, they’re set up, we’re going to do is something like having a three guys. Two robots. And then the target is, uh, within, uh, 21. We will be able to have these three Grice two, but two robots complete two blades.
It’s already two turbines at eight. So yeah, two turbines today. That’s uh, uh, and two robots. That’s the target for this year.
Dan: tell me about the, the, the human element here. So you said three technicians, um, working two robots can complete two turbines a day. That’s your goal for 2021. Um, what, what, what’s the role of the three, the heat three humans. Um, you know, if it’s one person maybe actually directing the robot then is the third sort of just supervising, helping out lending an extra hand.
Uh, how does that sorta orchestra work?
Martin: Yeah. So there’s a, you can say in the morning when you arrive at the turbine, there’s some breaking jobs to be done. You need to. Prepared the robots getting the ropes wrecked on the, on the turbines. You, you climb the tower, you attach ropes in the NSL, uh, lower them to the ground, attach it to the robot in that phase.
There, you need to be a few people. Uh, ideally you’d actually be four people in that phase, but three people, uh that’s that works quite well. And you can get that job done then during the day. You would, uh, you would have two people, uh, controlling the robot and, uh, doing, you’d say all the, uh, behind the computer screen and yeah.
Uh, decision support for the robot, that part of it. And then you have an extra guy. Being standby. And that means when you have to take a robot down to reload it with, uh, with some consumable materials, if you need to put another chemistry in the tool or something like that, then you have an extra guy, uh, in the field to support that part of it.
So that’s, uh, that’s basically the setup.
Dan: And then as far as the Tech’s job, uh, so the technician sort of analyzes the potential repair he decides, or she decides where and how long the repair should be. And then once he sort of like add all the parameters in, he’s going to press go, and then the robot is going to sort of take over the rest.
Is that, is that an accurate depiction of
Martin: it? Pretty much so it’s, uh, I, I tend to say it’s it’s semi-automated so we have the humans to do some decision power to the robot, uh, deciding. Yeah, how much should we be prepared? And it’s the, when you’ve done the sanding checking the quality, is that good enough?
Do we need to do another run to move, to make it, uh, uh, yeah, up to the standards we, uh, we require. And then when, uh, the technician send approved the process, then they, uh, execute the next process. So semi-automated, and I think. That’s actually one of the areas where we in the future expect also to improve the robot and even automate even more.
So you get some, some AI in there and the robot to assist the technicians in this decision-making and maybe in the future, you would even be able to optimize that even more. So Martin,
Allen: what’s the level of technology that’s in the robot. What all is all packed in to that, into that canister?
Martin: Yeah. So, uh, again, we have the, a lot of the complexity we have put into the, into the tools and that’s basically also to keep, uh, keep the robot, uh, flexible and modular, but the robot, the locomotive as we call it, uh, itself has, uh, there’s the drives for the, for the motors where we calling up, uh, ropes.
We that’s. Basically adjusting the distance on the, on the blade. Uh, then there’s the robot arm and the controller for the robot arm. Then, uh, then there’s some primatic system in the, in the robot because we’re, it’s not just tools. You actually need to be able to pick up these tools and place them back on the robot again.
And this is all done with it’s pretty much standard tool robot to change equipment, and that is all primatic, uh, controlled in our system. So there’s a. Quite complex, a problematic system there to handle that. And then there’s some, uh, some systems, uh, So providing an interface to the, to the tools. So all the tools have, uh, have also primatic interface.
We have some, some air pressure out there. We have some vacuum out there, then there’s a electricity out there. So you have, uh, here in Europe, we are earning two 30 volts. So that’s a two 30 volts AC to the, to the tools. And we have some 24 Watts supply. We have some Sheryl communication, stuff like that. So.
So all that is controlled from within the robot and we have the computer controlling everything. And then in the, on the tool side there, you then build in whatever mechanics you need to do a specific job. And then you have all the IO based on the, on the serial communication you have with the robot. So there’s quite a lot of stuff there.
Uh, And then on top of that, we actually have there’s cameras. So we have four cameras on the robot, uh, one on the robot arm. So you can always see what’s going on with, uh, with the tool we have on each side of the robot and one pointing upwards. Then we have a laser scanner on the, on the robot arm as well.
So we can scan the surface of the blade and actually get a bite, precise model of how does it look exactly here? Eh, We’re thinking about in the future, being able to scan the erosion. So you get a quite good model of what was your erosion like? And then have a, I was involved in a research project together with TTU here in Denmark, and there were trying to build models on.
Quantifying the AP impact a nice impact of your rotation. So that laser scanner is going to give you all the data for that part of it. Then we also have a force, top sensors to be able to measure what are the forces and impacts on our tools. Just quite a lot of stuff in there, and probably forgot some of it all.
Dan: So w I want to shift gears a little bit, because you mentioned your background was Siemens and, you know, we had chatted a little bit about how you got started. Um, but you were in a lot of ways sort of incubated by Siemens. Can you tell us a little bit how about what you did with them and how they sort of helped you guys, um, you know, get this concept going and, and, and cause I feel like a lot of companies, they struggle.
To get that sort of, you know, from concept to prototype, right. And then from prototype into a real world and actually out there on blades, I feel like that’s a big challenge. So can you take us through that process? Cause it seems like you guys have that hurdle was actually pretty low for you and that you really kind of hit the ground running.
Martin: Yeah. I think we’ve been really lucky on the, on that part and got some really great support from, uh, from, uh, from, especially from Siemens getting started. Uh, so. Going way back. Eh, the idea we, we, uh, there’s me and a colleague in CMS, we kind of, uh, got this idea of working on, uh, plates with, uh, with robots.
And that basically came from, uh, my colleague, who’s worked doing some statistics on, uh, on. On leading edge erosion and how wide spread this is going to be in, in the Siemens fleet and the whole industry, and came to some, see, this has got to be quite a big problem in the whole industry and talking about, maybe we could do this in a different way than doing, having people working from ropes and platforms and stuff like that.
So there, we came with the basic concept of a robot doing repair on blades, and we presented that to the management and, uh, and said, we would actually like to do a company, uh, based on this, uh, on this idea. And, uh, there, we got a goal to, to do that and, you know, look a lot. I think a lot of managers, a lot of companies that, uh, Eh, sorry, can’t support that.
Uh, you have a job, you need to take care of that, but we actually are really lucky and really grateful for, for our manager being supportive of this. So, uh, so they helped us, uh, in that way, setting us free basically to, to work on this in our spare time, getting the concepts in place. So that’s kind of the first part of it.
Then in the, in the Christmas holiday. We, uh, we board a, uh, laboratory in, uh, in, in all our university. And there we spend a couple of weeks during the Christmas to test out some of our ideas and concepts and, uh, uh, hence why I started this with, and me, we, we, we never tried to program a robot before, so that was kind of the first task, trying to figure out how do we write a program that could make a robot, um, do some movements.
So during this Christmas Sprague, we did learn to program robot and we did a few small tools. So we could actually send a piece of leading edge. And apply some filler to a piece of leading edge. And we also tested out some of this vacuum systems with moving on, on surfaces with use of vacuum. We got all of that test and in these two, three weeks and made some troll videos and showed it to Siemens and they were kind of impressed say, okay, that looks actually promising.
It’s very basic and simple now, but it looks promising. So, uh, And we asked them, okay, if we get this up and running, would you be able to support us with some turbines to test this and stuff like that and say, yeah, for sure. Or we’ll be able to do that. And then kind of the whole dialogue would seem started and they’ve been extremely supporting all the way through this, uh, getting this up and
Dan: running.
Yeah. I mean, Allen, you’ve worked in engineering and for all these different companies over the years, is that, is that correct? No, it’s
Allen: definitely not common. Uh, large companies don’t tend to want to have offshoots and they don’t know how to manage it, but in, in Martin’s case, I think he had a very unique situation and he used it.
To his, uh, advantage in a sense that, uh, you know, there’s, you know, there’s a huge problem out there and leading edge erosion. And it, it’s a very difficult problem to solve, obviously, because there’s been so much research on it in the last even year or two, there’s been a lot more research on it and to, to go back and try to maintain the performance of all the blades that exist in service right now is a really, really difficult problem.
And there’s been a lot of different. Um, possible solutions out there, but I like Martins because it’s pretty straightforward. Right? Uh, you want to clean the clean off the erosion, uh, clean off any contamination and apply a really, really durable coating. The problem has been is that that has involved putting people on ropes to do it, and it’s slow.
And Martin has evolved some, a technology, and it was really interesting to hear all those different parts about. Martin about what’s happening inside the robot, because from the outsider’s point of view, it sounds simplistic, but it’s not, there’s a lot of technology in that robot to accomplish those. Um, And that, that process to accomplish that process assessed repeatably.
How how’s that? Uh, some of the work you’ve been doing on blades been going, how’s your consistency been? How has the progress been? How’s the customer base been growing? How does that, now that you have a technology that’s working. Okay. How is it going out in the field? Where are you seeing?
Martin: And you’re looking back, there’s so many things that if you knew what you know today, you would have done it so much differently from the very beginning.
And there’s also times where you really love to being able to turn back the time, just a little bit, your avoided, these mistakes and stuff like that. But I think that’s the nature of, of all, uh, Basically all a development, all R and D uh, I was hearing, uh, another podcast the other day where they’re also talking about a lot of people have this perception that a development and new technology happens in a, you know, in the, in the blink of an eye.
And somebody comes with a brilliant idea and now we just have something new. That’s not the way it happens. It happens in small steps and then you get wires and it takes time. And, uh, we done a lot of iterations and try to dove a lot of different stuff. Uh, so, so right now, uh, we’re we sitting here with, with what we think is best now, but I’m also sure that’s gonna evolve in the future.
We are going to find more improvements and continue improving. Proving this. So, uh, yeah, this is where we are now. Um, so, so right now I think that the main thing is we’re at a place where the technology is ready to start making business on it. Uh, and there. Uh, there, we really want to now get the product introduced to the market and starting to getting some, some, some revenue based on this and starting to make some money because, uh, you know, it’s not free to run a company like this, having, uh, RD engineers working day and night to, to get this up and running.
It takes some money. So, uh, so getting some revenue and starting to making some of these money back, it’s a, it’s definitely a, a big thing for us
Dan: now. And so let’s, let’s talk about that. Let’s, let’s talk about your, your, your business model. So are you selling robots? So if I own, you know, uh, a wind turbine inspection repair company, um, are you selling me one of your robots and how I’m gonna learn how to use it and I’m going to deploy it just like I would, you know, uh, any, any tool in my shed or do I need a contract, you and you guys take care of all that yourself.
Like how, how does that, that work going forward? Yeah. So we
Martin: were still trying to figure out the exact right business model for this. Uh, and, and we’ve been starting off by, uh, hiring our own technicians. So we have our own, uh, wind turbine technicians that are trained in using the robots and have all the certificates needed to be able to work in turbines.
And then this way we can. We can sell the, the S the robot as a service. So you basically, if you had the turbine, you just give me a call and I will, uh, arrive in your wind farm with the robot and control equipment, all my technicians, everything, and we do the complete job for you. So in that sense, we’re a, a service company doing the repair, um, But for us, that’s more a way of getting started to show to the, to the world that this is the product we have and go out there and do some, some small, simple demos and yeah.
Basically showcase the robot. Then from there, the idea is to do partnerships with the existing service competent companies. Um, I don’t think, uh, we are going to be the best in the world to. Handle all the logistics and, and dealing with, uh, all the blue collar technicians working out there in the field. I.
Really have great respect for these service companies taking care of all this. That’s a real, a lot of complexities and logistics in handling all that stuff, making sure that goes on, uh, safely and, uh, at the right prices and in the right way. So, so that’s why we would like to do partnerships, is that on that area?
And then we can focus more on, on the technology part of it. So that’s going to be. Transforming from a service into a more, a, you can say maybe a franchise like business model where they can buy or lease the robot from us. And then we will train their two patients in, in using it the right
Dan: way. Yeah, that makes sense.
And I’m sure, I mean, Allen, that seems like that’s going to eliminate a lot of that complexity. Like he said, just logistically where, you know, you don’t want to be trying to organize, you know, 18 technicians in this state or in this country, in that country. And I mean, that just seems like a really big task.
And like you said, that would probably drag you off of your core focus, which is making technology that works, like making a robot that really does a great job for whoever’s operating it. Martin
Allen: is one of the aspects of your robot is that it can be commanded offsite or controlled offsite through the internet.
So is then if you were to franchise the robots out into service, to different, um, repair companies around the world, you still have ability to interact with that robot via the internet. Right? You can still provide service over the web. Yeah,
Martin: exactly. So, uh, we, we actually done some, some testing on that already.
Uh, we, we already, uh, represented in the, in North America. So I have, uh, I have one of my technicians in, uh, Eastern Canada at the moment, and it’s been working a little bit in the us earlier and, uh, There I’m supporting him basically sitting here in, in, in all hooks and Denmark. Uh, so when he’s out there and like to get a little bit support in what they’re doing, then I just pull up a video feed from the robot and I see the whole control of the, of the robot from here.
And we actually did a small test. Uh, he wanted to prepare some of the tools for something I said, okay, let me just try to take the control of the robot. So I was sitting here in a, in our office, controlling a robot operating. Yeah. In the, in North America and it worked smoothly and very well. So definitely I see a future where, where we have a control center somewhere where we, where we basically controlling the robots, uh, and doing this decision support for the robots from a.
Uh, you can say an office location somewhere in the world, and then you have all the onsite handling of the robot with the rigging and preparing the tools and stuff like that is done onsite. And then in that way you would have these two or three technicians. They will not be taking care of two robots.
They might be able to take care of maybe 10 robots instead, something like that. So that’s definitely a, an a, and an opportunity of, uh, of yeah. Improvement and efficiency.
Dan: And then, you know, it seems like especially as wind turbines continue to grow in size, right. They’re getting, I mean, they’re gigantic.
And as offshore, you know, continues to spread and like, you know, there’s more, um, capital allocated all over the world for offshore wind farms coming up. It’s, there’s definitely going to be this harmony between drones and robotics and you know, like the data centers and, um, and the technicians themselves.
I mean, how do you see the robot sort of fitting into this whole ecosystem? I mean, do you see it working side-by-side with, you know, aerial drones? Do you see it, you collaborating with other companies, um, you know, the whole task of just servicing the whole. Wind turbine market, all, you know, just taking, making sure all these things keep running.
Um, how do you feel like, uh, you know, rope, robotics fits into that ecosystem? I
Martin: think it’s pretty safe to say that, uh, the future of wind turbines has going to be equipped with a lot of robots and a lot of drones all over. Um, so today you see drones mainly used for inspection and, and starting to become a little bit of transport of, uh, of spare parts and equipment, uh, between, uh, uh, warehouse and the, and the individual turbines.
So, so drones are gonna. I think they’re going to take more and more tasks in that way. And, uh, now we have our robot that can do work on the, on the plate, but I definitely also see robots taking care of jobs, other where in the turbine. So it could be, our robot could easily be modified to work on the outside of the tower as you need to do some coding, uh, stuff like that, maintenance on the tower, but you could also see.
Eh, why not work on the inside of the turbine? You could have robots doing inspection tasks and maybe smaller maintenance tasks, tasks inside the cell or the tower. So definitely see robots, uh, going into that. I even also see why don’t we join robots and drones. So maybe that. Drones are the one moving the robots around, uh, today we have the robot hanging in ropes, but you could easily imagine in the future, it was a drone carrying the robot.
Um, and I envisioned somehow you have a, uh, you have basically a, you have a robot and some drones in your, in your side office, and then they pay you. Deploy them, you stop the turbine from, from your computer, you to pry them, they do a repair job, and then they land back in the side office. Uh, that’s the onshore we’re set up in the offshore.
It’s even better, you know? Wow.
Allen: That’s
Dan: amazing. That’s amazing. And you won’t even have to pet them or feed them. I mean, they don’t, you know, you can leave at home alone. They don’t get needy. Yeah, just good, good, good drugs. Good drone.
Martin: Course, there’s always a little bit, uh, some of the technicians, uh, getting a little bit worried sometimes when we talk talking robots and, uh, and drones, um, I heard a, I heard a story from another completely different business area, but someone implementing some, uh, some small robots in hospitals here in Denmark, and they want to carry around medicine and stuff like that.
Uh, and then they couldn’t figure out. They’re just the docking station for charging the robots, just stuff stopped working and then they put up a camera filming that a docking station. If we’re something with a robot, getting wrong into it, then what they saw, it was a guy peeing into the docking station.
So. Some patients, you know, one of the service technicians. So one of the poorest two was, uh, he was afraid of losing his job due to this robot, taking a waste task. She was trying to basically make a bad story out of this and stuff like that. I could imagine going to happen also with, uh, with a robot like ours, that our technicians actually being afraid of this new technology, taking their jobs.
Uh, but as I see it, uh, as I looked at some statistics also, uh, looking back. All this, all the automation automation done today and up till now has actually always, uh, created even more jobs. So for me, I don’t see our robot as something going out there taking people’s jobs. I’m more seed as something that is changing jobs.
So you going from one kind of job to another kind of job, you also have to be honest, you don’t see a lot of rope access technicians out there being 60 years old or 65 years old, still hanging in ropes and working there. It’s a tough job. It, uh, it, uh, I have a tendency of, uh, wearing you down and, uh, in that way you could say.
Maybe you have your first young years and you get your experience in ropes. And when you’re getting a little bit older, you want to have a family and you don’t want to travel so much anymore. Maybe being a robot operator is a, is a better job for you at that time. So you could still be in the wimpish and you will still be working with turbines and blades, but now you’re doing it from behind the screen, or you may be doing it where you don’t have to.
You hanging in rope, but you could use a lift in the, in the turbine in there that way it’s, it’s, it’s a more, uh, it’s a more safe and more easy job to do. So I think there’s definitely a big part of this that is not just, uh, the financial part of, uh, doing it, uh, much cheaper to do the repair of the blades, but we also doing it significantly safer, not just on the actual job when you’re hanging in the blades, but also not wearing people out as much as STEM
Dan: today.
Yeah. Well, I think that’s a good point because you’re right. I mean, with any physically demanding job, at some point, you’re going to start to say, man, my aching knees, like I just don’t want to climb this thing today and be up in the swirling winds, not to mention just thousands and thousands and thousands of exposures to anything, whether it’s a construction site, you know, whether it’s working on cars.
I mean just the more exposures you have to just random risks. You know, the more likely are like, I used to work on cars a lot in high school and just. You put in enough hours, you’re gonna bust your knuckles on something. You’re going to drop something on your face when you’re underneath the car. Like just even when you’re careful and you’re really good at what you’re doing, like little things are gonna happen and they’re going to add up.
And sometimes you just, you know, you twist an ankle, you, you know, like you said, I think it really would provide a nice way to transition out where people don’t see the end of their other, their useful life. And they’re not put out to pasture like an old race horse, you know, like. Yeah, I’ve been doing this for 20 years and I’m really good at it.
And now I can be on the ground more rather than just always being, getting kind of beaten up, you know, up on ropes, you know, 400 feet off the ground, which is, which is amazing and terrifying and hats off to them. The men and women that do that job. Yeah,
Martin: exactly. It’s uh, it’s, I think it’s, it’s quite impressive what these guys can do.
And, uh, the guys I’ve hired in today. It’s actually people that have been working from ropes and have this experience and, uh, I really see how they. Appreciate, uh, being able to do a lot of this work from. From the ground and not being able to do that needing to go up there. Of course. I also see sometimes they like to get up there again and just get, uh, get a little bit of the sure that, uh, that work.
And I think that’s, uh, you know, that’s the nature. We always, we also love what we did earlier and that kind of experience and, and see also that going quite well, hand in hand. But with the robot, because there will be tasks, the robot can’t fix. Sometimes there is something, uh, damaged, so complex on the blade that it doesn’t make sense to make the specific tools for the robot to fix that.
Then we still have all these, uh, Uh, really well well-educated probe access to cases out there can construct, could save the world, but, you know, uh, go out there and fix what we can’t do. So it’s a, we’re never gonna be able to work completely without these guys. I don’t, I don’t believe that we, the human factors, uh, you know, the human meat.
It’s, it’s a really, really brilliant machine. It’s really incredible what we can do with, uh, with the human body and, uh, and the human brain. It’s a really, really incredible, so, um, I’m not being able to do that kind of AI and then in any nearby future.
Dan: Well, and Alan, we were just talking about, you know, wind turbine technician jobs, uh, on, on, on a recent episode.
Um, I mean, what, what’s your, what’s your forecast for the future here? I mean, do you see this kind of the same as, as Martin does? I mean, where do you see this job evolving in the future?
Allen: Well, you’re definitely gonna have to have experience on blades and understanding what the failure modes are, the types of repairs you’re going to need to have that knowledge base, to do what is doing, which is to do the repairs.
You need to understand what’s happening out there. And that part is just really hands-on. That’s always going to be hands-on. Well, what Martin then is doing since sports is expanding the list of capabilities that the rope technicians need. Uh, they’re going to need it a little, be a little more computer savvy.
Most of them are already and understand some of the intricacies to specific robots because that’s where it’s going. We’re going to more robots and understand what the data streams are coming back from the drones, because we’re going to see a lot of drone data and even. Martins robots take a lot of data while they’re up there.
So you’re gonna have to be just a little more adaptable and, and winch, rope technicians tend to be very adaptable people. So I think it’s a natural fit, right? You, so you have the right kinds of people already in place. You’re just going to expand the knowledge base. And I think that’s a huge thing for as, as a rope technician to and repair person is to have a broad set of skills because it just makes you more valuable.
So you can expect to see a little bit higher, pay a little bit better benefits because you have those skills and that that’s good.
Dan: Yeah. And that’s one of the last things I want to touch on is, is, is data. So. Everyone’s talking about data and collecting it, analyzing it, you know, using it to track and forecast and, and all that.
So Martin are your, are your robots just doing your pairs or are they also collecting data? If so, where’s it going? You know, how does that all sort of fit into what you provide for a, you know, a customer.
Martin: Naturally, we, we, we collect a lot of data, of course. Uh, that’s a, that’s kind of the nature of drones and robots and automation is that, uh, it comes with the, with data as well.
And, uh, my background in Siemens they’re actually worked with big data as well. So I was managing a team, a department where we, uh, taking care of collecting all the operational data from all the turbines, doing statistics and analytics on all of, kind of all that data. So I have a strong background in data and therefore, of course, I also want to see that from the robot.
So right now we focus a lot of the, uh, the image documentation of, uh, of what we are doing to the robot takes a lot of images of the, of the work being done. You’d say typically, a rope access, the platform team will also take images of what they’re doing, but the robot is just. Even more, uh, persistent with taking all of these images and you, you make sure that you get all the data about where you are on the blade.
What is the humid humidity, temperatures, uh, serial numbers on all the equipment, all that kind of information. Embedded in your, in your images. So, you know, everything from, from that individual image. Uh, so it’s, it’s really the advanced photocopy that we embed in, uh, in our images then. As I mentioned earlier, we have the laser scanner where we would like to collect data about what is actually do the, how does the blade look like?
Not just from an image perspective, but also looking at what is the 3d image you can say of this blade and getting that kind of information? No,
Allen: I think in terms of just the amount of data, uh, you know, one of, part of Martin’s business is going to be just sort of data collection and data retention and, uh, interpreting that data because.
In this new world, we live in it because Martin has an corporate, it’s so many unique pieces of information, the laser scanning, I think it’s just unbelievable. Right? And that’s a, that’s a feature that’s just off the charts. Good. Uh, but you know, you’re gonna start having a lot of that data. And I think Martin’s perspective on it is you’re going to need people who are very skilled in that part.
And that, and then the big data, and that’s where Martin comes out of is obviously is the big data at a seaman. So he understands that that data is really key to success of, of wind turbines in the operation and the performance. Right. It’s not just walk out in the field like it used to be look around and make sure that at the store turn it we’re way beyond that now.
And Martin, as, as that sort of data business grows, how do you see that? And being incorporated into your business because you’re, you’re going to have terabytes of data.
Martin: Yeah. And I think that’s an, that’s an area that we haven’t fully explored yet. Uh, exactly. What’s, uh, how that’s going to be. And I think this is also an area where.
I want to team up with some other companies that are working already with this. So you see, you can say a lot of the drone companies already are working intensively on how do we utilize the most of the image documentation we get from drones and they have a lot of data handling systems built already.
So. That would be always for us to kind of make a collaboration in that way with a drone company or someone doing some of these data systems for drone companies. So I definitely see collaborations in the business on this area. Yeah. And then as I mentioned earlier, With, uh, with the research we’ve done with some of the, some other Danish companies and with the, with the universities where we’re trying to model, when you have the blade and you see the erosion, what effect does that have on your AP?
From the, from the turbine? And you have, uh, Starting to be able to model that and having, being able to report to the customers. Uh, so you’ve kind of, you just get this because you have the robot anyhow, up there, you have this information, then we have a model automatically provides you with information about what is the, the commercial upside of doing this repair.
I think that’s, it’s good information to get. And I think you could say it’s not just nice to have feature and why do we want to spend time with them? But you can say it’s also something giving you input too. How should you actually plan your repair? Because if you can stop modeling this level of erosion gives you this level of change in output from your turbine, and then comparing that with the cost of the repair and what is the, uh, the utility?
What, how much, what is the energy prices in my area? If you can stop modeling all that and figure out what is actually the optimal maintenance plan for my blades. Uh, not just a general thing, but you know, individual for my wind farm. And I think that’s, that’s just one way where you can see all this data really coming into play.
Allen: Well, Martin, I think you’re exactly right about that. And that’s what makes the wind turbine business so exciting at the moment is because they have a lot of what we call smaller mid-sized companies, which are, have very unique skill sets. And when you start connecting those companies together, then you have a very powerful.
Set of tools. And if I’m a wind turbine owner operator or managing a site, I’m going to need to connect you up a little bit because Martins rope robotics has got this really, uh, interesting, very great technology, which is going to fix my leading edges, but it also can provide me data. Uh, Danny Ellis over at sky specs has all the drone data and he has the software to sorta.
Categorize a level of damage that goes on, and then you have, uh, a company like power curve and Nick garden over there at, which is analyzing some of those effects about the leading edge erosion and what effect it has an AEP. When you start connecting those together, you become more powerful, but because each one of those technologies is so.
Technology intensive and Uribel robot technology is very technology intensive. You can’t have all that. You can’t have great technology coming out of a large corporation like that. You know, it’s going to take a lot of us smaller companies working together to really make the wind turbine operations so much better.
And I think that’s why your company is so interesting because you’re bringing a very unique set of tech technologies. To the, to actually to be in service and working, but also it connects to other technologies that, uh, I went to our bin operator may already be using. They may be using sky specs to do the drones and you can incorporate that data.
Enter your knowledge base to go out and repair the leading edge. Those are, those are game changing, large skill, uh, uh, changes in the industry that are being brought by companies like yours. And I think that is really key. And this is why, uh, we talked to more and more small companies that are involved in wind turbine technology.
It starts to put a framework around it and. As you grow and you will grow because I think technology is right on point. How do you see that integration working together? How have you worked with other companies to date about exchanging of data and, and how that those companies start to interchange together?
Is it, are you already starting to work some of those relationships. To
Martin: be honest, we’ve been so much focused on getting our technology up and running. So we’re ready to go out there and actually prove to the market that now robots can connect. You prepare blades. So that’s simply not been, I haven’t had the time to, to go into this area yet to be honest.
Uh, I do though. I have had some, some talk with some of these companies, uh, already, uh, I know them, they know me and, uh, and we have had had these, uh, initial talks that we, we ought to do something together. But right now, to be honest, it’s a little bit, uh, on the bottleneck at the moment on that part. Uh, but, but, you know, Definitely we’re going to go there.
And, uh, I think it’s going to be, uh, be great as well. And, uh, again, um, I’m happy to work with all these companies because I don’t believe that we can, we can’t do it all ourselves. And, uh, like, uh, like my, uh, my managers and semen says, uh, also they can’t do it also. They also need these small startup companies coming up with their technology and supporting the wind business.
So I think. We need each other, all of us. And I think that’s a, that’s great. It’s, uh, it’s very, it’s very fantastic to be in the wind business and seeing all this new stuff coming along and then having both these enormously big players, like Siemens investors and all of the big utility companies as well.
And then there’s still room for small startups, like, uh, like me and, you know, also the other drone companies that some of them were getting quite big now, but they also started small. And, uh, yeah, so it’s, it’s really, really
Dan: fantastic. So Martin, uh, how can people follow up with you and your company?
Martin: So nationally we have our own website, robotics.com.
Uh, welcome to, uh, to have a look there. We have a YouTube channel as well, where we posting videos once in a while. It’s not been so much over the winter, uh, but we will definitely gonna post a bittersweet during the summer when the robot is getting into operation again. And, and of course we also on social media, like Facebook, LinkedIn, et cetera.
So. Yeah, please, uh, hook up, connect with us on all the different platforms, and then we’ll share some more information with you guys.
Dan: Yeah. So as always we’ll link below. So if you want to follow up with, with Martin and his company, uh, rope robotics, be sure to check out the description, whether you’re on YouTube or the podcast platform of your choice, we’ll have links.
You can click right through Martin. Thanks again for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. This is a great talk and it was a really, really interesting learning more about your robotics and where you guys are headed in the
Martin: future. Thank you very much. It’s been really a pleasure meeting you guys as well.
And, uh, being a pleasure here to talking about my product. It’s always nice to share.
Dan: All right, that’s going to do it for today’s episode of the uptime podcast. A big thanks again to our guests, Martin from rope robotics. Be sure to follow up with his company, doing a lot of really interesting stuff and definitely spend some time on YouTube, checking out their robot, the bra in action.
Be sure to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you listen. Thanks again for watching or listening, and we will see you here next time on the uptime wind energy podcast.
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