che_may-2024 - 20

IADYS
AIRA
intervention, " says Castello.
Besides Dow, IADYS is partnering
with several other plants in the U.S. Gulf
Coast region that are part of the Operation
Clean Sweep (OCS) program
aimed at reducing plastic pollution
in water.
The newest generation of IADYS
FIGURE 3. These remotely controlled robotic devices
are designed for cleaning debris and pollution
from water surfaces
in water. Besides their cleaning capabilities,
Jellyfishbot robots also can be
equipped with water-quality sensors
to measure temperature, salinity, turbidity
and cyanobacteria and phytoplankton
concentrations.
At Dow's manufacturing site in
Freeport, Tex., Jellyfishbots have
been deployed to clean debris, such
as plastic pellets or overgrown algae,
out of stormwater conveyance systems,
meaning that humans no longer
need to access these areas during
extreme heat or potential flood situations.
The autonomous nature and
onboard sensors of the robots allow
them to navigate their environment
seamlessly, minimizing collision with
walls or other obstacles. The robots
can communicate via wireless, Bluetooth
or 5G connectivity, so remote
control is possible in any plant area as
needed. The next step for Dow will be
to install a floating docking station -
which IADYS is commercially launching
this year - so that the robot can
automatically dock itself when charging
is required. " With the docking station,
which will recharge the robot,
allow it to offload the net and will
clean the robot, we're definitely taking
things to the next level. We are also
thinking about a supervision platform
to enable the use of a fleet of robots
(several dozen) without any manual
robot is the Mobile Oil Skimmer
(MOS), which equips a Jellyfishbot
with a storage platform and skimmer.
Said to be the first mobile oil-cleanup
device, the MOS can collect oil from
the surface of water and store it in an
onboard 120-L tank. According to the
company, the MOS can achieve a fast
skimming rate of 3.5 L/min, which is
essential for containing oil spills and
minimizing environmental
damage.
Also helpful is the robots' ability to rapidly
deploy the containment booms
used for spill response (Figure 4).
IADYS
FIGURE 4. Robots can quickly deploy containment
booms for faster remediation of oil spills
20
Advances in teleoperation
The second Advanced Industrial Robotic
Applications (AIRA) Challenge
(www.aira-challenge.com) will take
place at the Achema World Forum and
Tradeshow (June 10-14; Frankfurt
am Main, Germany; www.achema.
de). The AIRA Challenge will bring together
some of most advanced mobile
robots in the world with the goal
of developing new robotics technologies
that can execute tasks remotely
in chemical processing plants. At
the previous AIRA Challenge, held at
Achema in 2022, the goal was to provide
proof-of-concepts for fully autonomous
mobile robots (Figure 5). However,
for the 2024 challenge, the focus
is moving beyond full automation to
a more dynamic and communicative
model for robots. " Making robots fully
autonomous takes enormous effort
to program everything, so we wanted
to expand the business case for autonomous
robots. Now, we're not just
looking for an autonomous robot, but
one that can communicate its needs
to operators, " explains Carl-Helmut
Coulon, head of future manufacturing
concepts at Invite GmbH (Leverkusen
Germany; www.invite-research.com),
the organizer of the AIRA Challenge.
Giving robots the ability to " call for
help " when an unknown situation
is encountered helps to lower the
programming barrier for automaticity,
says Coulon. " You can program
FIGURE 5. The AIRA Challenge has helped to push
the boundaries of automation in mobile robots
in the easiest 80% of the solution,
and then any situation that the robot
cannot handle by itself can be communicated
to and dealt with by the
operator, " he explains. While it may
seem like reducing the amount of automation
in a robot might decrease
its complexity and capabilities, there
are many benefits to the teleoperation
approach that AIRA is looking
for. " We want to upgrade the robots
to enable remote control of the robot
from a distance with no line of sight,
and also add virtual reality to navigate.
This gives the robot flexibility to open
and close doors, dispose of waste,
inspect closed cabinets and take material
samples, " says Coulon.
He believes that the flexibility enabled
by teleoperation will increase
the business use cases for mobile
robots in chemical plants and warehouses
and encourage their adoption
in industry. In theory, operators could
take control of a robot at a plant thousands
of kilometers away to respond
to an alarm or evaluate the severity of
a situation and decide whether or not
in-person intervention is required.
" We see teleoperation as an extension
of classical autonomous mobile
operations. At the challenge, we expect
to see mobile robotics capabilities
that have never been seen before, "
adds Coulon. The 2024 AIRA
Challenge finalists, listed below, were
selected by a judging group consisting
of experts from BASF, Bayer,
Wacker and Boehringer Ingelheim.
* EngRoTec Group (Hünfeld, Germany;
www.engrotec.de)
* ETH Zurich's Robotic Systems
Lab (Switzerland; rsl.ethz.ch)
* Forschungzentrum für Informatik
(Karlsruhe, Germany; www.fzi.de)
* Reply Roboverse (Munich; www.
reply.com/roboverse-reply)
* Team TruPhysics/United Robotics
Group (Stuttgart, Germany; www.
truphysics.com)
■
Mary Page Bailey
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING WWW.CHEMENGONLINE.COM MAY 2024
http://www.aira-challenge.com http://www.achema.de http://www.engrotec.de http://rsl.ethz.ch http://www.invite-research.com http://www.fzi.de http://www.reply.com/roboverse-reply http://www.truphysics.com http://WWW.CHEMENGONLINE.COM
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