UK's Perceptual Robotics secures over £4M to bring AI-powered drone inspection to the world's largest wind turbines

Wind turbine blades present the most significant maintenance challenge in both onshore and offshore wind. As wind capacity increases, turbines are becoming larger and are being installed further offshore. The inspection and maintenance model used by most operators is therefore becoming less suited to the scale and conditions of the assets it is meant to cover.

Perceptual Robotics, a UK-based company founded by Kevin Lind, Kostas Karachalios and Dimitris Nikolaidis, develops autonomous drone inspection systems and AI-powered software for maintaining wind turbine blades. Proprietary autonomous drones capture high-resolution imagery of the blades, and AI models classify the type and severity of any damage. The company's own metric, the Repair Now Ratio, then prioritises which repairs need to happen first. The cloud platform aggregates data from autonomous flights, inspection services and third-party sources, giving operators and service teams a complete operational overview of their fleets. The technology is in use across Europe, North America, and Latin America, including deployments in challenging environments and on some of the world's largest turbines.

Perceptual Robotics has just raised more than £4 million in equity investment from Investing for Purpose, Loggerhead Ventures and One Planet Capital, alongside co-funding from Innovate UK. The capital will support the expansion of offshore capabilities and continued product development.

Sources: Perceptual Robotics | Crunchbase

Founders: Kevin Lind, Dimitris Nikolaidis, Kostas Karachalios