Blade visual inspection
checked 1 Sep 2026
Wind
Task maturity · five steps · every value is an analyst assessment| Task | Maturity | Dominant approach | Vendors | Deployed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blade visual inspection | Mature | Drone-based | 3 | 1 |
| Tower and nacelle inspection | Scaling | Drone-based | ||
| Blade cleaning | Early commercial | Rope/cable-suspended robot | 1 | |
| Lightning-protection testing | Early commercial | Rope/cable-suspended robot | 1 | |
| Blade repair | Pilot | Rope/cable-suspended robot | 3 | |
| Contact NDT | Pilot | Blade crawler |
Blade visual inspection
MaturePhotographic inspection of blade surfaces for erosion, cracks and lightning damage, usually by drone.
Drone-based blade inspection is standard practice across onshore and offshore fleets, sold as a routine service by multiple vendors with analytics attached. The incumbent (ground-based telephoto or rope access) is now the exception, which is the definition of a mature robotic task.
What happens today
The incumbent process
Ground-based telephoto photography or rope-access close visual inspection.
These are the pre-drone methods and remain the fallback where drones cannot fly.
How do robots attack it
Robotics approaches
Drone-basedScaling
Multirotor drones flying close to blades for inspection; contact work from the same platform is early.
example vendorsSkySpecs
Who is doing it
Vendors and deployments
Who buys it
Target customers
Asset owners and operators
Owners buy fleet-wide inspection campaigns and the resulting defect analytics.