The £3m Digital, Autonomous and Robotics Engineering (DARE) Centre at the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult’s testing facility was opened yesterday (May 18, 2023) by Graham Stuart, the UK government’s minister for energy security and net zero.
UK offshore wind is set to triple capacity over the next decade and the adoption of robotics and autonomous systems is seen as vital to achieving this expansion and reaching Net Zero.
Stuart said: “Drones, robots and underwater vehicles can reinforce the UK’s position as the world leader in offshore wind, make us even more competitive, and keep turbines turning in even the most hazardous of conditions.”
The DARE Centre includes a robotics assembly bay, an airborne robotics test zone, three dry docks with 20,000m3 capacity and test control rooms linked to the docks via a live environment monitoring system.
Andrew Jamieson, chief executive at ORE Catapult, said: “The UK has a global reputation for its sub-ocean engineering expertise and ingenuity. The DARE Centre will propel UK businesses and this capability into the fast-expanding offshore wind space.
“Innovation we can unlock here will allow those at the cutting edge of offshore wind development to work faster and safer, optimise specialist skills, improve reliability, and reduce the carbon footprint of the next generation of offshore wind farms.”
Companies displaying their technology solutions at the DARE Centre opening included Kinewell, Enshore Subsea, SMD, EnergyVue, BeeX and Sonardyne, Eleven-I, Innvotek, and Aspira Aerial Applications.
Enshore Subsea, BeeX, and Aspira Aerial Applications have signed up to test their products at the new DARE Centre. Aspira is developing a specialist coating, sprayed onto a wind turbine blade by drone to remove salt build up and detritus, with the aim of improving turbine power output and minimising downtime.
Jonathan Fenning, managing director at Aspira Aerial Applications, said: “The DARE Centre will be pivotal in supporting multiple stages of our Innovate UK project to develop spray application using a bespoke drone to improve the operating efficacy of wind turbine technology.
“We can provide fast, efficient and cost-effective solutions to achieve an increase in performance for the industry, but we needed to test and evidence our developments. To do this we needed to perform real world testing – something that is incredibly challenging for a drone of our size and complexity, but the centre was ideal.”
The DARE Centre has been funded through UK government’s Getting Building Fund, managed in the region by the North East Local Enterprise Partnership (North East LEP), and Innovate UK.
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