Novel Aerial Manipulator for Accurate and Robust Industrial NDT Contact Inspection: A New Tool for the Oil and Gas Inspection Industry
Novel Aerial Manipulator for Accurate and Robust Industrial NDT Contact Inspection: A New Tool for the Oil and Gas Inspection Industry
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DOI：
10.3390/s19061305
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发表时间：
2019-03-02
期刊：
影响因子：
3.9
通讯作者：
Ollero, Anibal
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Angel Trujillo, Miguel;Ramiro Martinez-de Dios, Jose;Ollero, Anibal
石油和天然气行业迫切需要开发人工检测的替代方案。本文介绍了一种新型的航空机械臂AeroX，它提供了前所未有的物理接触检测能力。AeroX具有半自主操作，这在接触检查方面提供了有趣的优势。在自由飞行模式下，驾驶员引导机器人与被检测表面上的末端执行器进行接触。在接触过程中，AeroX处于完全自主的全球导航卫星系统（GNSS）无接触飞行模式，在这种模式下，机器人仅使用其内部传感器保持相对于表面接触点的相对位置。在自主飞行期间，检查员可以不间断地接触表面上的末端执行器，以准确选择执行a扫描测量或连续b扫描或c扫描检查的点。AeroX采用八倾斜转子结构，设计简单高效，具有很高的稳定性、机动性和对转子故障的鲁棒性。它可以对任何方向的表面进行接触检测，包括垂直，倾斜，水平顶部或水平底部，其操作可以很容易地集成到许多行业的当前维护操作中。它已经在包括炼油厂在内的室外实验中得到了广泛的验证，并获得了2017年欧盟创新雷达奖。
There is a strong demand in the oil and gas industry to develop alternatives to manual inspection. This paper presents AeroX, a novel aerial robotic manipulator that provides physical contact inspection with unprecedented capabilities. AeroX has a semi-autonomous operation, which provides interesting advantages in contact inspection. In the free-flight mode, the pilot guides the robot until performing contact with its end-effector on the surface to be inspected. During contact, AeroX is in its fully-autonomous global navigation satellite system (GNSS)-free contact-flight mode, in which the robot keeps its relative position w.r.t. the surface contact point using only its internal sensors. During autonomous flight, the inspector can movewith uninterrupted contactthe end-effector on the surface for accurately selecting the points where to perform A-scan measurements or continuous B-scan or C-scan inspections. AeroX adopts an eight-tilted rotor configuration and a simple and efficient design, which provides high stability, maneuverability, and robustness to rotor failure. It can perform contact inspection on surfaces at any orientation, including vertical, inclined, horizontal-top or horizontal-bottom, and its operation can be easily integrated into current maintenance operations in many industries. It has been extensively validated in outdoor experiments including a refinery and has been awarded the EU Innovation Radar Prize 2017.