2022
Authors
Dias, A; Almeida, J; Oliveira, A; Santos, T; Martins, A; Silva, E;
Publication
2022 OCEANS HAMPTON ROADS
Abstract
Offshore wind turbine application has been widespread in the last years, with an estimation that in 2030 will reach a total capacity of 234GW. Offshore wind farms introduce advantages in terms of environmental impact (noise, impact on birds, disrupted landscapes) and energy production (34% onshore and 43% offshore). Still, they also introduce scientific challenges in developing methodologies that allow wind farm inspection (preventive maintenance) safety for humans. This paper presents a UAV approach for autonomous inspection of inland windturbine and describes the field tests in Penela, Portugal. From the state-of-the-art available wind turbine inspection, in 2015, we carried out the first autonomous inspection with a UAV. The inspection of wind blades offshore is an ongoing project; therefore, the paper also presents the preliminary results with a simulation environment to validate the 3D LiDAR and the inspection procedure with new challenges effects: floating platform, wind gusts, and unknown initial blade position.
2025
Authors
Viegas, D; Martins, A; Neasham, J; Ramos, S; Almeida, M;
Publication
Abstract
2025
Authors
Cusi, S; Martins, A; Tomasi, B; Puillat, I;
Publication
Abstract
2025
Authors
Martins, A; Almeida, J; Almeida, C; Silva, E;
Publication
Abstract
2023
Authors
Zajzon, N; Topa, BA; Papp, RZ; Aaltonen, J; Almeida, JM; Almeida, C; Martins, A; Bodó, B; Henley, S; Pinto, MT; Zibret, G;
Publication
EUROPEAN GEOSCIENCES UNION GENERAL ASSEMBLY 2023, EGU DIVISION ENERGY, RESOURCES & ENVIRONMENT, ERE
Abstract
The UNEXMIN (Horizon 2020) and UNEXUP (EIT RawMaterials) projects developed a novel technology to send robots and even autonomously deliver optical images, 3D maps and other georeferenced scientific data from flooded underground environments, like abandoned mines, caves or wells. The concept turned into a market ready solution in seven years, where the last few years of field trials of the development beautifully demonstrating the technology's premier capabilities. Here in this paper, we focus on the wide variety of environments, circumstances and measurements where the UNEXMIN technology can be the best solution or the only solution to deliver certain research or engineering data. These are obtained from both simple and complex environments like different mines and caves, small and large cavities, long and tight tunnels and shafts, different visibility conditions, even different densities of the liquid medium where UX robots operated.
2025
Authors
Loureiro, G; Dias, A; Almeida, J; Martins, A; Silva, E;
Publication
JOURNAL OF MARINE SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING
Abstract
Climate change has led to the need to transition to clean technologies, which depend on an number of critical metals. These metals, such as nickel, lithium, and manganese, are essential for developing batteries. However, the scarcity of these elements and the risks of disruptions to their supply chain have increased interest in exploiting resources on the deep seabed, particularly polymetallic nodules. As the identification of these nodules must be efficient to minimize disturbance to the marine ecosystem, deep learning techniques have emerged as a potential solution. Traditional deep learning methods are based on the use of convolutional layers to extract features, while recent architectures, such as transformer-based architectures, use self-attention mechanisms to obtain global context. This paper evaluates the performance of representative models from both categories across three tasks: detection, object segmentation, and semantic segmentation. The initial results suggest that transformer-based methods perform better in most evaluation metrics, but at the cost of higher computational resources. Furthermore, recent versions of You Only Look Once (YOLO) have obtained competitive results in terms of mean average precision.
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