In security-critical situations in the maritime area, ship-based deployment of remotely piloted aircraft systems could enable automated acquisition of aerial images and other sensor data. If intervention is required, response times of federal institutions could be shortened significantly without endangering personnel. This paper gives an overview of research undertaken at DLR in cooperation with the German Federal Police for Maritime Tasks. For a safe ship deck landing of an unmanned rotorcraft a combination of precise navigation and tethered landing system has been developed and patented. Relative double-difference algorithms are used for precise navigation of the rotorcraft to a hover point over the ship deck. From there, an electromagnetic winch is lowered from the rotorcraft that connects to the ship deck. The resulting cable connection is used for aligning the rotorcraft during landing and securing it on the ship deck afterwards. First demonstrations on a real ship deck show the feasibility of the system.

Maintenance of offshore wind farms requires the transportation of tools and spare parts in close coordination with the deployment of technicians and the cost-intensive shutdown of the wind turbines. In addition to ships and helicopters, drones are envisioned to support the offshore transportation system in the future. For cost-efficient and scalable offshore drone operations, autonomy is key to minimize the required infrastructure and personnel. In this work, we present a system architecture that integrates the key onboard capabilities for autonomous offshore drone operations: onboard mission and contingency management, en-route trajectory planning, robust flight control, safe landing, communication management, and runtime monitoring. We also present technical solutions for each of these capabilities and discuss their integration and interaction within the autonomy architecture. Furthermore, remaining challenges and the feasibility of autonomous drone operations for offshore wind farm cargo delivery are addressed, contributing to the realization of this vision in the near future. The work presented here summarizes the results of autonomous cargo drone operations within the UDW research project, a joint project between the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the energy supplier EnBW.

The rising demand for renewable energy production capabilities following Europe’s green energy revolution is expected to lead to a large expansion of offshore wind farms (OWF) into the exclusive economic zones of North and Baltic Sea. Automated cargo drone delivery of maintenance and repair materials could significantly lower the high costs of wind farm maintenance. For efficient and safe operations, drones must be properly integrated into the maritime domain and the OWF. The Upcoming Drone Windfarms (UDW) project between the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the energy provider Energie Baden-Württemberg (EnBW) targets several aspects of these central challenges. This paper presents the main concept for a fictitious drone transport mission to OWF Hohe See, operated by EnBW in the North Sea, which acts as reference scenario to develop the integration and operation concept as there is no model drone transport service available today. The presented work focuses on the interaction between the drone and the wind farm’s infrastructure as this is expected to be one key element to benefit from the automation potential of drone usage. For the interaction, appropriate concepts for communication were developed, implemented, and eventually demonstrated in a simulated transport mission in an onshore wind farm. The paper contributes to this topic with the identification of necessary infrastructure extensions to enable a reliable communication, the interaction between the drone and the wind farm, and a summary of shared information. Also, the technical setup of the flight tests and main findings are presented.