Towards fully autonomous floating offshore wind farm operation & maintenance

Wind energy is one of the most versatile and promising sustainable energy solutions. Wind energy can be harvested in both onshore and offshore environments. Due to the environmental and societal impacts of onshore wind farms, the focus on developing offshore wind farms has been steadily increasing. For deep-water areas, floating wind turbine solutions have been developed in the past two decades. Each wind turbine is mounted on a floating structure and connected to a mooring system. While the floating wind turbine technology enables electricity generation in water depths where fixed-foundation turbines are not feasible, operation and maintenance (O&M) have become serious issues. This paper investigates the challenges and potential enabling technologies for the development of autonomous floating offshore wind farms. In particular, the paper explores the potential utilization of information and communication technology (ICT) and robotics toward fully autonomous floating offshore wind farm O&M, aiming for cost reduction and improved operational safety. The presented solutions cover fundamental aspects in floating platform design, remote operation in the form of digital twins, autonomous underwater robots and surface vehicles, and eco-friendly energy storage.