Programme time: 13-Oct | 10:30 | 60 min
Room: Infante room
 

Moderator: Pedro Nuno Leite (INESC TEC)

Speakers

  • José Vicaria (OceanWinds)
  • Pedro Nuno Leite (INESC TEC)
  • Andrey Pinto (INESC TEC)
  • Antidio Viguria Jiménez (CATEC)

 

Full description and objectives

The European Union is actively transitioning to a net-zero grid, raising renewable-energy target to 45% by 2030. This growing library of energy assets, including solar parks, onshore and offshore wind, hydrogen plants, and the grids that connect them, must be inspected and maintained.

Current O&M procedures are human-centric, dangerous and weather-limited with technicians climbing turbines and divers working blind over subsea structures. As capacity scales, Physical AI becomes indispensable. Agentic autonomy lets robots perceive, reason, and act with minimal supervision, while learned collaborative behaviors coordinate heterogeneous fleets (ground, aerial, surface and subsea) working in tandem. Embedded AI pushes perception to the edge, detecting defects and predicting failures preemptively rather than reactively. These capabilities will enable the scale-up of renewables that the transition demands.

This workshop showcases what autonomous, AI-driven O&M can deliver across energy domains today. 
Example of institutions that will participate (indicative) include: INESC opens with its multi-domain robotic fleet powered by agentic, collaborative autonomy applied to offshore wind and floating photovoltaics. CATEC expands on physical AI for aerial power-line inspection and intervention; ANYbotics showcase autonomous inspection of hydrogen-energy plants; and Ocean Winds closes with end-user perspectives on offshore structures. 

Why you want to join?

This workshop directly maps onto the core themes of ADRForum by focusing on resilience, strategic autonomy, and the real-world convergence of AI, Data, and Robotics.
 
By exploring Physical AI for Europe's Energy Resilience, the session targets European safeguard and scaling of critical renewable energy assets. 
 
The proposal demonstrates how data-driven embedded AI and agentic autonomy enable heterogeneous robotic fleets, spanning ground, aerial, surface, and subsea domains, to safely interact with and maintain the offshore turbines, floating PVs, hydrogen power plants, among others. Ultimately, by directly aligning with the ADRA "Inspection and Maintenance" and "Energy" Topic Groups, this workshop addresses the forum's ultimate objective of moving AIDR technologies out of isolated testing environments and scaling them into day-to-day operations to protect European sovereignty.

 

Running agenda

TimeRunning agenda
10:30–10:40Introduction - Challenges of inspection and maintenance across Europ's critical energy infrastructure 
10:40–10:50Physical AI for aerila power-line inspection and intervention
10:50–11:00Autonomous ground-robot inspection of energy plants
11:00–11:10End-user perspectives related to O&M on offshore energy
11:10–11:30Roundtable discussion & Wrap up

Contact: Pedro Nuno Leite (INESC TEC)