Engineering news
Wind power is one of the key renewable energy sources for the future, but the large fast-spinning blades can be dangerous for animal life, particularly large endangered bird such as the golden eagle.
“If a turbine strikes a generic bird, sad as that is, it’s not as critical as striking a protected golden eagle, which could potentially trigger down time in turbine operations and losses in revenue, and most important the loss of a member of a protected species,” explained Roberto Albertani from Oregon State University’s College of Engineering.
At the moment, visual monitoring and surveys of carcasses are used to determine the number of bird strikes, but these are prone inaccuracies and are difficult to conduct in remote locations, or at sea.
Albertani and colleagues created an auto-detection system for bird strikes. It has a vibration sensor at the base of the blade, an acoustic sensor on the generator to detect bird sounds, and an optical camera on the base of the turbine.
They tested their system by firing tennis balls at wind turbines using a compressed-air launcher. “General results from 29 field tests with blade strikes showed positive detection and confirmation 14 times," Albertani said. "Likely the impacts not detected were low-energy events. It is strongly believed the success rate can be significantly increased.”
The researchers found that a strike on any one of the three blades was capable of triggering the sensors, so not all three blades on a wind turbine would necessarily need to have sensors installed.
Albertani is also working on a related project using computer vision to track approaching birds and check if they are eagles flying towards the blades, and then trigger a deterrent if so. It could also be used to track what kinds of birds have been hit in a strike.