Use renewable resources such as wind and sun to generate electricity: wind turbines are an important pillar of the energy transition. But there is also a negative side, at least animal rights activists think: They fear for the life of birds. What is it? A new kind of protection from Puchheim is supposed to solve the problem.
Puchheim - wind turbine operators often end up not being able to set up their new turbines at the locations that were originally planned because protected or rare bird species reside here. The company Phil-Vision has found a possible solution to the conflict between animal rights activists and wind farm operators with a customer. Bird-Vision is the name of the computer system that the employees have developed and have recently been testing.
System differentiates between flying objects
Cameras installed at the foot of wind turbines, which point towards the sky, evaluate images of flying objects. The intelligent system can distinguish between aircraft, clouds and birds and reports when it detects a bird of prey. The wheel then stops its rotating wings within 20 to 30 seconds, which can reach speeds of up to 300 kilometers an hour. By autumn 2020, the employees of Phil-Vision are hoping for a positive result from the prototype in order to support further energy parks in the future.
The young company is active in the image processing industry (“vision”). Put simply, this means taking pictures and then processing them with information technology. "This is where the company name Phil-Vision comes from," explains managing director Patrick Gailer. "Phil" comes from the last name of his colleague and co-founder Gregor Philipiak, who ran the company until 2017 before the two IT specialists, together with colleague Angelika Thoma, renamed it a GmbH. The proportion of women is exemplary: "In fact, we have recently had a ratio of 50 to 50," says the 46-year-old managing director. “It was important to us and it was not particularly easy. But we are very proud of that. ”
Eight employees are involved in image processing
A total of eight employees currently work on topics related to image processing in the company. In Germany this would primarily be used for quality control. “For example, to detect scratches in a glass bottle or whether a screen was assembled correctly,” says Gailer. "But X-ray machines also work with imaging methods, for example when it comes to detecting a tumor." The range of solutions that the company offers in the field of vision is therefore wide.
The Bird-Vision project is not about quality inspection, but about object detection. Phil-Vision and the client have been sitting together for two years. Implementation has been active for a year and a half. It was considered which components, such as cameras, are required for the system and how they have to be put together. "If that works, the IT and software will follow," reports the Emmeringer Gailer.
Not a single dead bird was found
However, Gailer cannot confirm one hundred percent whether the claim that wind turbines will doom the birds is ultimately true. "I only know that since the talks started two years ago, not a single bird has been found dead in the customer's wind farm." And that without technology.
However, a strange case happened: a lifeless bird was actually found under a wind turbine. After the autopsy, it turned out that the car had already been run over before and was then placed under the system. (Lisa Fischer)
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