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Highly compact robots for inspection of power plants
Author(s) -
Caprari Gilles,
Breitenmoser Andreas,
Fischer Wolfgang,
Hürzeler Christoph,
Tâche Fabien,
Siegwart Roland,
Nguyen Olivier,
Moser Roland,
Schoeneich Patrick,
Mondada Francesco
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal of field robotics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.152
H-Index - 96
eISSN - 1556-4967
pISSN - 1556-4959
DOI - 10.1002/rob.21411
Subject(s) - robot , boiler (water heating) , systems engineering , field (mathematics) , engineering , manufacturing engineering , engineering management , computer science , artificial intelligence , mathematics , pure mathematics , waste management
This paper reports on a 3‐year applied research project dealing with several inspection scenarios of power plants and resulting in many robot prototypes and three main achievements. The project is a common effort between industry and university, including ALSTOM and researchers from the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology. The goal is to generate knowledge and transfer technology to industry in the field of robot inspection. The method is to collect commercial scenarios, study them, make some exploratory prototypes, select the best scenarios, and develop enhanced prototypes for the most promising applications. The three most evolved robots are MagneBike for steam chest, AirGapCrawler for generators, and Tubulo for boiler tubes. The supporting technologies that have been developed are adhesion, locomotion, system integration, and localization. The paper describes the scenarios handled, the scientific knowledge generated, and the three best robotic systems. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.