The spotlight today is on Romotioncam, a company with an inspection method that works while blades are in motion. René Harendt, CTO at Romotioncam, and Michael Stamm, a researcher from the Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung in Germany, discuss this groundbreaking technology. Learn about innovations at the company, from a new 840 mm focal length camera to thermal imaging data, that will make inspections more helpful for operators.

Check out Michael's research at BAM! https://zenodo.org/records/14170341, https://www.bam.de/Content/EN/Projects/KI-Visir/KI-Visir.html

Register for Wind Energy O&M Australia! https://www.windaustralia.com

Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. 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. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!

Pardalote Consulting - https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech - www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com

Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining light on wind energy's brightest innovators. This is the progress powering tomorrow.

Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast Spotlight. I'm your host, Allen Hall, along with my co host, Joel Saxum. Today we have two experts pioneering innovative wind turbine inspection methods. René Harent is the CTO of Romotioncam whose patented technology enables high res photography of operating wind turbines.

And Michael Stamm from Germany's Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing, who specializes in thermographic inspection methods for wind turbines. Together, they're combining visual and infrared imaging to revolutionize how we detect early stage blade issues. Rene and Michael, welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast Spotlight.

Thank you. We have seen Romotioncam a number of times, and the technology is really good, Rene. I like it because the turbine continues to operate. As you take high quality images, the technology has evolved quite a bit from the last time I have seen it. Do you want to explain where you're at with Romotioncam today?

So

René Harendt: at the moment, we actually build up a fleet to scale up and to provide it to a bigger market. And yeah, I actually have a new prototype with A bigger focal length. So the actual system has a 500 millimeter focal length. The new system has an 840 millimeter, millimeter focal length. So that means that we can, even on higher turbines and bigger blades, because this is related to our distance to the turbines, we can provide GSDs like 0.

06 centimeter per pixel. So something up to 0. pixel.

Allen Hall: So in that kind of imaging resolution, you can detect all kinds of blade abnormalities.

René Harendt: Yes, even little hair cracks and stuff like this.

Joel Saxum: Yeah, because you're approaching what a drone can do, right? That's, even a couple of years ago, two millimeters per pixel, three millimeters per pixel is normal.

But now that one millimeter per pixel, a lot of times you'll see that in an RFP, right? When someone puts out, Hey, we're, we want inspections and they put it out to the market. One millimeter per pixel will be the standard, but you guys are offering this without actually having to stop the turbine. So your value add goes through the roof because you're keeping that production going.

René Harendt: That's true. And if you think about it with that, sometimes we add a distance of 160 meters, something like this and provide that kind of GSD. Yeah, this. Sometimes there are. That's amazing, yeah.

Allen Hall: So maybe, René, for those uninitiated, who are not familiar with Romotioncam, what are the fundamentals here?

How does this system work?