TANK INSPECTION BY COST EFFECTIVE RAIL BASED ROBOTS

摘要

Manual inspection and maintenance work in vessel tanks is a dangerous task that carries potential short- and long-term health risks for the humans involved. The German-Norwegian MARTEC ROT project started to delegate this work to robots. Based on the yard and class requirements a robot based inspection system was developed. An autonomous 3D rail guided robot for inspection tasks in ballast water tanks (BWTs) was implemented. It was developed and tested in a complex test facility, which resembles an actual BWT. The results of the robot's performance tests are described in the paper. The robot consists of different connected flexible modules for different purposes (sensor, computing, drive train, manipulator, power supply) which can be rearranged or extended to the specific needs of the task at hand. In contrast to locomotion techniques for climbing or walking robots on steel, the proposed concept makes use of a simple corrosion-free and thermoplastic rail that can be freely arranged in-place and that allows for high payloads and upside-down operations of the robot. The end users requirements (class, yard, etc.) for inspection, maintenance and repair are described as well as the results of the life cycle cost analysis which supported the whole development process to assure a cost effective robot system. It was proven that the autonomous robot system is able to reduce the inspection costs even if several components and processes can be optimized furthermore.