An Automatic Procedure for Overheated Idler Detection in Belt Conveyors Using Fusion of Infrared and RGB Images Acquired during UGV Robot Inspection

Complex mechanical systems used in the mining industry for efficient raw materials extraction require proper maintenance. Especially in a deep underground mine, the regular inspection of machines operating in extremely harsh conditions is challenging, thus, monitoring systems and autonomous inspection robots are becoming more and more popular. In the paper, it is proposed to use a mobile unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) platform equipped with various data acquisition systems for supporting inspection procedures. Although maintenance staff with appropriate experience are able to identify problems almost immediately, due to mentioned harsh conditions such as temperature, humidity, poisonous gas risk, etc., their presence in dangerous areas is limited. Thus, it is recommended to use inspection robots collecting data and appropriate algorithms for their processing. In this paper, the authors propose red-green-blue (RGB) and infrared (IR) image fusion to detect overheated idlers. An original procedure for image processing is proposed, that exploits some characteristic features of conveyors to pre-process the RGB image to minimize non-informative components in the pictures collected by the robot. Then, the authors use this result for IR image processing to improve SNR and finally detect hot spots in IR image. The experiments have been performed on real conveyors operating in industrial conditions.

The climbing performance analysis of a robot for power line inspection with retractable double serial manipulators

A power line inspection robot has to overcome many kinds of obstacles in inspection processes. The strain clamp is the obstacles difficult for inspection robots to overcome. The inspection robot needs to have a particular climbing ability to overcome the strain clamp. Therefore, the ability to climb power lines is the key point of the inspection robot’s design. An inspection robot with retractable double serial manipulators is proposed to improve the climbing and obstacle-crossing ability. Besides, this paper shows that the inspection robot is more suitable for climbing from static analysis and dynamic evaluation index. Firstly, the obstacle-crossing processes and structures of the inspection robot are introduced. Next, the static analysis is carried out when inspection robot climbs the power lines. The static analysis shows that the new inspection robot has a smaller driving torque. What’s more, the dynamic model of the inspection robot is established by Lagrange’s dynamical equations. By constructing the dynamic evaluation indexes, the inspection robot with retractable arms performs better dynamic characteristics. Finally, a prototype robot is carried out to cross obstacles and climb up power lines. The results show that the inspection robot can overcome different obstacles and has a good climbing performance.

Robot-Inclusive False Ceiling Design Guidelines

False ceilings are often utilised in residential and commercial spaces as a way to contain and conceal necessary but unattractive building infrastructure, including mechanical, electrical, and plumbing services. Concealing such elements has made it difficult to perform periodic inspection safely for maintenance. To complement this, there have been increasing research interests in mobile robots in recent years that are capable of accessing hard-to-reach locations, thus allowing workers to perform inspections remotely. However, current initiatives are met with challenges arising from unstructured site conditions that hamper the robot’s productivity for false ceiling inspection. The paper adopts a top-down approach known as “Design for Robots”, taking into account four robot-inclusive design principles: activity, accessibility, safety, observability. Falcon, a class of inspection robots, was used as a benchmark to identify spatial constraints according to the four principles. Following this, a list of false ceiling design guidelines for each category are proposed.

Iterative Approach on Redesigning and Construction of a Pipe Inspection Robot

<p>A pipe inspection robot is a device that is inserted into pipes to check for obstructions or damage. These robots are traditionally manufactured offshore, are extremely expensive, and are often not adequately supported in the event of malfunction. This had resulted in Associated Environmental Services Limited, a New Zealand utiliser of this equipment, facing significant periods of down-time as they wait for their robots to be repaired. Recently, they were informed that several of their robots were no longer supported. At their instigation, this project was conceived to redesign the electronics and control system of one of these pipe inspection robots, utilising the existing mechanical platform. Requirements for the robot were that it must operate reliably in confined, dark and wet environments, and provide a human user with a digital video feed of the internal status of the pipes. This robot should, as much as possible, incorporate off-the-shelf components, facilitating cheap, and potentially on-site repair. This project details the redesign and construction of such a robot. It employs three electronic boards integrated with the mechanical components and provides video feedback via a custom graphical user interface. Although at the prototype stage, the electronic redesign has been successful, with a cost of less than a tenth of the original robot purchase price.</p>

Iterative Approach on Redesigning and Construction of a Pipe Inspection Robot

<p>A pipe inspection robot is a device that is inserted into pipes to check for obstructions or damage. These robots are traditionally manufactured offshore, are extremely expensive, and are often not adequately supported in the event of malfunction. This had resulted in Associated Environmental Services Limited, a New Zealand utiliser of this equipment, facing significant periods of down-time as they wait for their robots to be repaired. Recently, they were informed that several of their robots were no longer supported. At their instigation, this project was conceived to redesign the electronics and control system of one of these pipe inspection robots, utilising the existing mechanical platform. Requirements for the robot were that it must operate reliably in confined, dark and wet environments, and provide a human user with a digital video feed of the internal status of the pipes. This robot should, as much as possible, incorporate off-the-shelf components, facilitating cheap, and potentially on-site repair. This project details the redesign and construction of such a robot. It employs three electronic boards integrated with the mechanical components and provides video feedback via a custom graphical user interface. Although at the prototype stage, the electronic redesign has been successful, with a cost of less than a tenth of the original robot purchase price.</p>

Analysis of power frequency electric field distortion caused by substation inspection robot

In the era of intellectualization, many substation inspection robots are being put into operation, but they will cause electric field distortion in the surrounding space during operation. This paper establishes a three-dimensional simplified simulation calculation model for 500kV substations and inspection robots. Based on the boundary element method, we simulate the power frequency electric field of the substation switchyard and analysis the distortion electric field when the inspection robot is in the station. The results show that when the electric field intensity is strong, the distortion coefficient caused by the robot will be larger, and the maximum can reach 2.25 times, and when the electric field intensity is small, the distortion coefficient will be smaller, and the distortion coefficient is 1.42 times on average.

A nonlinear optimal control approach for underactuated power-line inspection robots

The article proposes a nonlinear optimal (H-infinity) control approach for a type of underactuated power-line inspection robots. To implement this control scheme, the state-space model of the power-line inspection robots undergoes first approximate linearization around a temporary operating point, through first-order Taylor series expansion and through the computation of the associated Jacobian matrices. To select the feedback gains of the controller an algebraic Riccati equation is solved at each time step of the control method. The global stability properties of the control loop are proven through Lyapunov analysis. The significance of the article’s results is outlined in the following: (i) the proposed control method is suitable for treating underactuated robotic systems and in general nonlinear dynamical systems with control inputs gain matrices which are in a nonquadratic form, (ii) by achieving stabilization of the power-line inspection robots in underactuation conditions the proposed control method ensures the reliable functioning of these robotic systems in the case of actuators’ failures or enables the complete removal of certain actuators and the reduction of the weight of these robotic systems, (iii) the proposed control method offers a solution to the nonlinear optimal control problem which is of proven global stability while also remaining computationally tractable, (iv) the proposed nonlinear optimal control method retains the advantages of linear optimal control that is fast and accurate tracking of reference setpoints under moderate variations of the control inputs, and (v) by minimizing the amount of energy that is dispersed by the actuators of the power-line inspection robots the proposed control method improves the autonomy and operational capacity of such robotic systems.