A Bristol-founded start-up that uses autonomous drones and artificial intelligence to spot damage on wind turbines faster and more safely than human inspection.
Perceptual Robotics is a green robotics company that uses autonomous drones and artificial intelligence to find damage on wind turbines early. A wind turbine blade can be as long as a football pitch, and checking one traditionally means sending people up on ropes or using cameras from the ground. The company's drones fly around the turbine on their own, take images and use software to flag damage. It says its technology can cut turbine blade maintenance costs by 30 percent, which is a company claim. A study with the University of Bristol and the assurance company DNV, partly funded by Innovate UK, found its technology detected damage 14 percent better than expert human inspectors.
Three Bristol alumni founded the company, and it has roots at the University of Bristol. Its chief executive is Kostas Karachalios, who studied for a Master of Engineering there. Tom Richardson, Professor of Aerial Robotics at Bristol, supervised the founders and joined the board when the company launched. The mission, in the chief executive's words, is to make inspection faster and safer: he says there is a clear need for faster, safer inspections. We did not find a longer values statement.
The company is based in Bristol, in the South West of England, and a 2017 article from a local technology hub describes an early project with Bristol researchers funded by a government award of more than a million pounds. It has worked with Enel Green Power, part of the energy company Enel, to put its inspection system into use as a proof of concept across Enel's wind farms. Wind farms are often offshore or in remote places, so its work reaches well beyond Bristol, but we only confirmed the Bristol base from university and local news sources.
The sources we read say little about day-to-day culture. They do show a link between university research and business: the founders were students who spotted a problem and built a company around it, and their professor joined the board. Working here would mean being part of a small engineering and data team where robotics, software and renewable energy meet.
A company like this employs robotics and aerospace engineers, software developers and machine learning engineers who teach the software to recognise damage, drone pilots and field operations staff, and customer-facing people who work with energy companies. Engineering, computer science, physics and maths are natural subjects, and the company's story shows how a university project can grow into a business. Check its website for current vacancies.
Website: www.setsquared.co.uk/company/perceptual-robotics
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