Design of a Situation-Awareness Solution to Support Infrastructure Inspections

Abstract

This paper demonstrates how an interactive design approach, complemented with information visualization techniques, might contribute to reducing maintenance costs associated to inspections performed in industrial infrastructure, equipped with wind turbines, in particular by triggering events outlining for those situations requiring the intervention of the decision maker (context-awareness). The goal is to mitigate operational costs associated to blade inspections, lessening the time to conclude each inspection without compromising the quality and level of accuracy in identifying possible safety breaches that may compromise the operability of the blades, assuring in this way the sustainability of such critical infrastructures. The proposed solution addresses a digital cloud-based platform providing information to different stakeholders, enabling those who contracted the inspection services to follow undergoing or programmed actions and to receive notifications whenever their intervention is required. The solution also makes use of autonomous drones to collect on-site data and in this way support the information needs related to blade inspections. From a service-design perspective, a user-centered approach was followed to improve the User Experience (UX) in analyzing events related to blade inspections, complemented with information visualization techniques to streamline their interactions whenever required. The Agile Design Science Research Model (ADSR) was applied to the blade inspection process for a demonstration of the primary outcomes.