MAINBOT

Mobile robots for inspection and maintenance activities in extensive industrial plants

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'Efficient and effective maintenance is crucial for all kind of industries. In the case of capital intensive investment industries it is even more relevant and has an important impact in the operation costs during the long life cycle of their production means.

Besides the traditional maintenance problems of any industrial installation, this kind of facilities presents other additional challenging characteristics: -Extensive production facilities -Huge number of control points -Multiple inspection technologies to be used -Hazardous working conditions

MAINBOT proposes using service robots to autonomously execute inspection tasks in extensive industrial plants in equipment that is arranged horizontally (using ground robots) or vertically (climbing robots).

The industrial objectives are: -Ubiquitous sensing -Leakage detection -Surface and internal monitoring of equipment

Our approach is not to develop robots from scratch but to take available wheeled mobile platforms and climbing robots that have already been tested in other related scenarios as starting point, and adapt them deploying innovative solutions in order to fulfill these industrial objectives: -Autonomous navigation: Robots (ground and climbing) must be able to autonomously navigate in a rather structured environment in a safe way. -Mobile manipulation of tools and sensing equipment for maintenance and inspection. -Sensor fusion: to exploit the information provided by multiple sensing technologies deployed in the robot.

These industrial objectives will be instantiated in a real industrial scenario, a thermal solar plant that depicts common problems of this kind of plants: 230 hectares, 209.664 mirrors, 90 km of absorber tubes, huge tanks (Diam. 38 m, height 14m), harzardous working conditions. The operation of semi-autonomous or fully autonomous mobile robots will increase the efficiency of the plant, reduce the operation and maintenance costs and improve safety and working conditions of workers'

Introduzione (Teaser)

Routine inspection and maintenance can be anything but routine in large industrial settings. An EU initiative has developed autonomous robotic technology to protect capital investment and promote human safety.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

Efficient and effective maintenance is important in all industrial settings. In environments with intensive capital investment and in which operator or inspector safety is an issue, maintenance solutions are even more imperative.

The EU-funded http://www.mainbot.eu/ (MAINBOT) (Mobile robots for inspection and maintenance activities in extensive industrial plants) project adapted wheeled mobile platforms and climbing robots to autonomously inspect equipment in very large production plants through the integration of multiple robotic sensing technologies. To achieve this, MAINBOT developed ground and climbing robot prototypes to check equipment positioned either horizontally or vertically.

Partners defined six operations for which solutions were developed. These consist of detection or measurement of mirror reflectivity, heat transfer fluid leakage, coating degradation, broken mirrors, vacuum loss in collector pipes, and corrosion and cracks. They derived the requirements of the robotic platforms in terms of safety and reliability.

MAINBOT developed simulation environments and two physical mock-ups for testing. The ground mock-up assessed the performance of the navigation and manipulation algorithms while the vertical mock-up evaluated the climbing and sensor positioning methods with the climbing robot. In addition, the robotic platforms were adapted based on the required specifications. Several inspection technologies were also advanced.

The final robot prototypes were successfully validated in two thermal solar plants.

Thanks to MAINBOT, industries that require major capital investment can better address the particular maintenance problems of their large installations. The European industrial sector stands to benefit from more efficient production plants.