Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), or drones, offer a very real solution for the inspection of confined areas, such as tanks. Traditional inspection of these enclosed spaces is a laborious, expensive and poses many potential hazards.
For a manufacturing or industrial operation, every lost minute of production time is critical. Unscheduled downtime can end up costing significant time and money and businesses need to find ways to stop, or at least, minimise delays and disruptions.
With pressure vessels (PV) having a multitude of uses within the petroleum and petrochemical industries and, crucially, being a highly-valuable yet hazardous asset, it makes sense that much time and money is being dedicated to the creation of improved means of inspection and maintenance.
Legged robotics is a relatively new area of research with the intention of providing autonomous systems that are capable of navigation within extreme environments, difficult terrain and in the most complex of confined spaces.
Maintenance plans are crucial for the efficient, smooth running of a plant. Machines and assets are routinely under stress and effective documentation of alignment data is a vital underpinning task to ensure the most economical and predictable maintenance strategies.
A key focus of much research into the use of robotics within the oil & gas and petrochemical industries is that of improving the inspection and maintenance process of aboveground storage tanks (AST). Online robotic floor inspection could be the answer.
