On the Use of Cooperative Autonomous Mobile Robots and Active Optical Remote Sensing Technology in Inspection Robotics

摘要

Effective strategies for detecting and localizing gas emissions in large and complex industrial facilities are of great importance due to safety, environmental and economic considerations. Inspection strategies depend largely on the type of sensing technology used. Thus, the emergence of new light-weight and portable optical remote sensing technologies opens up new possibilities in the development of gas detection and localization strategies. Furthermore, due to the monotonous and repetitive nature of the inspection tasks, they present an ideal usage scenario for autonomous robotic systems. This paper focuses on the use of cooperating autonomous mobile robots to exploit the advantages of a particular type of active optical remote sensing technology called "Tunable Diode Laser Absorption Spectrometry" (TDLAS). The potential of such systems is discussed and first experimental results are presented.