Insect inspired robots are coming to fix the world's wind turbines – By Futurist and Virtual Keynote Speaker Matthew Griffin

Join our XPotential Community, future proof yourself with courses from XPotential University, connect, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. The world of maintenance might sound dull, but when the aircraft of the future have autonomous robot snakes and cockroaches from Rolls Royce fixing them all of a sudden things get a little bit more interesting. Now, in another giant leap forward for robot bug-kind a company called BladeBUG in the UK have unveiled a bug-like robot that, like human wing walkers, performs "blade walks" along the blades of operational offshore wind turbines. "[The new robo-bugs] open the door to autonomous inspection and repair of wind turbines, improving the efficiency of the blades and reducing risk for rope access technicians," said Chris Cieslak, founder and director of BladeBUG. "[Our robot] uses a patent-pending six-legged design with suction cup feet, which means each of the legs can move and bend independently. This is significant because it enables the robot to walk on the blade's changing curved surface, as well as inside the blade, tower, or hub of the turbine."