Robotic Inspection of Oil and Gas Plants by Hybrid Unmanned Vehicle and Mobile Ground Support Platform

Abstract

Safety risks and high costs of human inspection of oil and gas plants drive towards the adoption of robotic inspection. The challenging cluttered inspection environment and the constraints dictated by legislation on potentially explosive atmospheres implying energy-efficient solutions suggest the use of an inspection-tool-equipped hybrid rolling-flying unmanned vehicle and of a mobile ground platform supporting the connected inspection robot. These two design choices together with their development are described in this article.

Keywords

• uav
• industrial inspection
• mobile robot
• gas and oil refinery