A Wall Climbing Robotic System for Non Destructive Inspection of Above Ground Tanks

Abstract

The inspection and maintenance of above ground storage tanks (AST) can be very time consuming and dangerous when performed manually. The motivation behind this paper is to simplify the task of nondestructive testing of above ground storage tanks in oil refineries and other industrial applications. The proposed robotic system consists of an autonomous mobile platform that can move on the vertical walls of the tanks carrying the testing probes, a ground station where the sensor data can be monitored for faults or internal cracks in the tank walls and the wireless communication link. In this paper we are presenting the proposed mechanical design for the robotic vehicle, the control system and a coverage algorithm to autonomously scan the cylindrical surface of the oil storage tank with the mounted sensor for fault detection. The control system consists of hierarchal control architecture with four different layers viz: task layer, behavior layer, control layer, and physical layer.