Comprehensive Highly Integrated Maintenance Engineer's Robotic Assistant - Version 2 (CHIMERA 2)

全面高度集成的维护工程师机器人助手 - 第 2 版 (CHIMERA 2)

• 批准号: 93084
• 金额: $ 25.12万
• 依托单位: SOUND MATHEMATICS LTD
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Collaborative R&D
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=93084
• 关键词: Comprehensive; Highly; Integrated; Maintenance; Engineer

Pressure vessels are safety critical infrastructure, present across many industries such as oil and gas, nuclear, petrochemical and aerospace. Assuring the safety of these ageing assets is increasingly important, as there have been many fatal failures in the past. This is affected via regular assessments of fitness for service, which are regulated by exacting industry standards.The standards specify that a full volumetric inspection of pressure vessels must be carried out every five years. 20% of pressure vessels in the oil and gas industry cannot be inspected externally and internal inspections require production shutdown. Industry have publicised the need to remove humans from these **dull, dirty, dangerous and demanding** environments. Therefore industry is pushing for non-intrusive robotic inspectionsInternal inspection has significant cost and health and safety risk associated with it: in order to carry out such inspection, the operator must stop production, depressurise, store extracted fluid, vent , etc. The total cost associated with these activities can easily exceed £1M within a few days. More importantly, these tasks are currently carried out by human operators. It is not possible for humans to carry out inspection on these assets without breaking containment, the only way to do so, is via robotics and artificial intelligence. Providing such solutions is our main motivation.CHIMERA is a semi-autonomous robotic crawler for internal pressure vessel inspection, maintenance and repair. It can be deployed into the pressure vessel without breaking containment via an innovative bolt on headworks. The current version is equipped with sensors for self-localisation, brush for cleaning vessel walls (both in air), ultrasonic inspection system (capable of functioning in water), supplied with AI, which creates corrosion maps and reasoned maintenance and repair plans and a slender arm for visual inspection and repair in aeroengines. The project is coming to an end, with testing and demonstrations of the crawler about to start and the slender arm demonstrations delayed by six months due to COVID-19. It is proposed to develop the next better integrated version of CHIMERA - CHIMERA 2, with both navigation and ultrasonic systems capable of functioning in a vessel half-filled with water and the robotic arm suitable for inspection of aircraft wings too.There are close ties between the consortium and the targeted industries, providing a direct route to market/exploitation. The members propose to exploit them and demonstrate a fully integrated version, CHIMERA 2, to external stakeholders at the end of the new project.

压力容器是安全关键的基础设施，存在于石油天然气、核能、石化和航空航天等许多行业。确保这些老化资产的安全变得越来越重要，因为过去曾发生过许多致命的失败。这是通过定期评估是否适合使用而受到影响的，这些评估受到严格的行业标准的监管。这些标准规定，必须每五年对压力容器进行一次全面的体积检验。油气行业20%的压力容器无法进行外部检验，内部检验要求停产。工业界已经宣传了将人类从这些**枯燥、肮脏、危险和苛刻的**环境中移除的必要性。因此，行业正在推动非侵入性机器人检查内部检查具有显著的成本以及与之相关的健康和安全风险：为了进行此类检查，操作员必须停止生产、减压、储存提取的液体、通风口等。与这些活动相关的总成本很容易在几天内超过100万GB。更重要的是，这些任务目前由人类操作员执行。人类不可能在不打破限制的情况下对这些资产进行检查，唯一的方法是通过机器人和人工智能。提供这样的解决方案是我们的主要动机。CHIMERA是一款半自主的机器人爬行器，用于内部压力容器的检测、维护和维修。它可以通过头架上的创新螺栓在不破坏安全壳的情况下部署到压力容器中。目前的版本配备了用于自我定位的传感器，用于清洁容器壁(在空气中)的刷子，超声波检测系统(能够在水中运行)，配备了人工智能，可以创建腐蚀图和合理的维护和维修计划，以及一个细长的手臂，用于航空发动机的目视检查和维修。该项目即将结束，爬虫的测试和演示即将开始，细长手臂的演示因新冠肺炎而推迟了6个月。有人提议开发下一个更好的集成版本的Chimera-Chimera 2，导航和超声波系统都能够在装满一半水的船只上运行，机械臂也适合检查飞机机翼。该财团与目标行业之间有着密切的联系，为市场/开发提供了一条直接的途径。成员们提议利用它们，并在新项目结束时向外部利益攸关方展示一个完全集成的版本，Chimera 2。