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ATLANTIS Project: Advancing Floating Wind Farm Technologies

On the 20th of April, the leaders of the ATLANTIS Project organised a project dissemination event and technology workshop in the port of Viana do Castelo, nearby Porto, Portugal. The event was organised by the INESCTEC research group, and funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 program. The ATLANTIS project aims at developing and implementing innovative technologies for inspection, maintenance and repair operations on floating wind farms, a major promising source of renewable energy for the future. The meeting was attended by experts, researchers, and stakeholders from various organisations, including universities, research centres, and private companies involved in marine technologies.

 

The event aimed to promote the ATLANTIS Testing Centre, built during the project, which will facilitate the exchange of ideas and knowledge in the field, promote collaboration and networking, as well as allow companies to test their technologies in near real conditions. The testing facilities include a fully equipped control centre, a part of a real marine industrial infrastructure to conduct experiments on and access to cranes and boats of the local sailing club.

 

The event was divided into three parts. Firstly, there was a welcoming session for the participants, which included a presentation of various robots from the INESCTEC team.

 

 

Secondly, there was a presentation on the current state of the DURIUS maritime infrastructure, which had been cleaned and modified to facilitate underwater manipulation experiments. The infrastructure will soon be installed again in the ATLANTIS Testing Centre.

 

 

Finally, there was a workshop about important technologies that need to be developed to perform automatised maintenance of floating wind turbines, and how far these technologies already reached from the market readiness perspective.

 

The UdG team was represented by Patryk Cieślak, one of the postdocs involved in developing the project. It was an important chance to inspect the state of the DURIUS, for better preparation for future experimental trials, as well as, a great networking opportunity, with interesting insights given by the wind farm operators and experts from the industry.