Abstract
This paper considers the inspection by contact of long arrays of pipe structures in hard-to-reach places, typical of chemical plants or oil and gas industries, presenting the design of a hybrid rolling-aerial platform capable of landing and moving along the pipes without wasting energy in the propellers during the inspection. The presented robot overcomes the limitation in terms of operation time and positioning accuracy in the application of flying robots to industrial inspection and maintenance tasks. The robot consists of a hexa-rotor platform integrating a rolling base with velocity and direction control, and a 5-DOF (degree of freedom) robotic arm supported by a 1-DOF linear guide system that facilitates the deployment of the arm in the array of pipes to inspect their contour once the platform has landed. Given a set of points to be inspected in different arrays of pipes, the path of the multirotor and the rolling platform is planned with a hybrid RRT* (Rapidly-exploring Random Tree) based algorithm that minimizes the energy consumption. The performance of the system is evaluated in an illustrative outdoor scenario with two arrays of pipes, using a laser tracking system to measure the position of the robot from the ground control station.
Highlights
The application of aerial manipulation robots to inspection and maintenance operations [1] in industrial scenarios like oil and gas refineries [2], [3], wind turbines [4], or bridges [5], [6] is motivated by the convenience to reduce the required time and cost with respect to conventional solutions carried out nowadays by human operators deployed on cranes and other infrastructures
MULTIROTOR AND ROLLING BASE PERFORMANCE The rolling-aerial inspection platform is evaluated in the outdoor scenario shown in Fig. 25, consisting of two arrays of three PVC pipes (2 m length, 20 cm Ø, 10 cm separation) supported by a frame structure built with Rexroth bars
The Leica robotic total station, used for the accurate measurement of the position of the multirotor, is deployed next to the GCS (Ground Control Station) and connected through the serial port, at least at 20 m distance from the first array, where the safety pilot supervises the execution of the inspection task
Summary
The application of aerial manipulation robots to inspection and maintenance operations [1] in industrial scenarios like oil and gas refineries [2], [3], wind turbines [4], or bridges [5], [6] is motivated by the convenience to reduce the required time and cost with respect to conventional solutions carried out nowadays by human operators deployed on cranes and other infrastructures. The effective operation time is relatively low due to the limitation imposed by the batteries (around 10 – 20 min for a nominal payload) and the energy consumption required to maintain the aerial platform on flight during the realization of the task. In this sense, a metric of interest to be maximized is the ratio between the effective operation time in which the robot conducts the task, and the deployment time, that is, the time required to reach the workspace.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
