Success stories 2020

Last year we added six new countries to our portfolio and signed contracts to serve customers in 25 countries on four continents during 2021. We completed our biggest inspection campaign to date, inspecting 1500 wind turbines for Vestas NCE in Scandinavia during three months at the height of the first wave of Covid-19. To overcome challenges such as travel restrictions and social distancing, we quickly introduced an online pilot training program and expanded our local partner network to serve a growing customer base in Europe, Australia, Asia and North America.

To support our growing operation and our customers, a browser-based and even more powerful version of our 3DX Blade Platform was launched, integrating all aspects of inspections in one place, providing a collaborative platform and an intuitive work process for all teams involved.

About Sulzer Schmid

Founded in 2016 by Tom Sulzer and Christof Schmid, Zurich-based Sulzer Schmid is at the forefront of innovation in the energy service sector. Our UAV technology and sophisticated data analytics platform are used to produce high-quality inspection results for rotor blades. To date, we have completed more than 7000 wind turbine inspections using autonomous drones in more than 20 countries worldwide.

Our collaborative and cloud-based 3DX™ Blade Platform is at the core of our digital end-to-end process and integrates every aspect of the rotor blade inspection in one place. It offers a fully transparent view of the blade health status of the entire fleet and allows customers to capture visual blade data using our fully autonomous drones, process the images and generate highly customizable reports at a push of a button.

Capturing blade data

• Plan every inspection with our 3DX™ Blade Platform
• Capture and record blade defects using our autonomous UAVs
• Analyze the images for blade defects aided by Artificial Intelligence (AI)
• Generate and share a detailed report with the browser-based 3DX™ Blade Platform
• Track damage progression and monitor trends over the long term

Analysing blade data

With our powerful analytics tool all blade data is available in one place. This allows you to share annotations and discuss specific damages with experts, get accurate repair quotes and have insightful discussions with your customer by providing necessary information and links to specific damages.

By tracking damage progression over time, you can make informed decisions about the timing of repairs and ensure the integrity of your blades. Thanks to more reliable forecasting you can save costs, improve the annual energy production and future proof your O&M strategy by basing it o real data.

Flexible execution models are available and can be customized to suits the needs of OEMs, Owners and Operators and Field Service Providers alike, ranging from software licensing options to full-service blade inspections.

3DX Blade Platform at a glance

• Autonomous drones with pre-defined flight routes
• High-quality, repeatable images and 360° view of the rotor blades
• Easy set-up and only half a day pilot training required
• 30 minutes downtime per turbine
• AI aided data processing saves time for blade experts
• Intuitive and collaborative work process from one, user-friendly interface with link-sharing features
• Powerful analytics tool to optimize the performance of your assets over time