Development of a mobile robot assistant for wind turbines manufacturing

TL;DR

This paper presents a mobile robotic assistant designed to aid in the assembly of large wind turbine components, aiming to reduce costs and improve working conditions in a challenging manufacturing environment.

Contribution

It introduces a novel mobile robot system tailored for wind turbine assembly, addressing automation challenges with large, variable components.

Findings

Reduced manual labor in wind turbine assembly

Potential cost savings in manufacturing processes

Enhanced safety and working conditions for operators

Abstract

The thrust for increased rating capacity of wind turbines has resulted into larger generators, longer blades, and taller towers. Presently, up to 16 MW wind turbines are being offered by wind turbines manufacturers which is nearly a 60 percent increase in the design capacity over the last five years. Manufacturing of these turbines involves assembling of gigantic sized components. Due to the frequent design changes and the variety of tasks involved, conventional automation is not possible making it a labor-intensive activity. However the handling and assembling of large components are challenging the human capabilities. The article proposes the use of mobile robotic assistants for partial automation of wind turbines manufacturing. The robotic assistant can result into reducing production costs, and better work conditions. The article presents development of a robot assistant for human operators to effectively perform assembly of wind turbines. The case is from a leading wind turbines manufacturer. The developed system is also applicable to other cases of large component manufacturing involving intensive manual effort.