Chemical Engineering December 2020 - 14

tion of repeatable work processes,
the company says.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.
(MHI; Tokyo, Japan; www.mhi.com)
has also been pursuing an explosionproof
plant-inspection robot. MHI recently
concluded an agreement with
Eneos Corp. on joint development
of a second-generation EX ROVR, a
plant inspection robot with explosionproof
features to limit the danger of
the robot igniting an explosion or fire
from electric sparks or heat, even in
areas with flammable gas. The agreement
targets early realization of a
practically viable model (Figure 4).
Last year, a prototype EX ROVR
moved autonomously through several
floors of an oil refinery and collected
data through its various sensors,
demonstrating its feasibility in
the field. Under the newly agreed
joint-development
program, the
data
companies will pursue greater volumes
of high-quality onsite
through software improvements and
the incorporation of a manipulator for
photographing instrumentation from
a directly facing position. Targets will
also include enhancing usability.
Asset inspections
Another area where robotics is
catching on is in the inspection of
plant assets. An example comes
from HEBI Robotics (Pittsburgh, Pa.;
www.hebirobotics.com), a spin-off of
Carnegie Mellon University's (CMU)
Robotics Institute (www.ri.cmu.edu).
The company recently announced
that it is taking pre-orders for its
MAPS (Modular Absolute Positioning
System), part of a suite of robotic
tools based on the articulated locomoting
" snake robot " technology developed
at CMU.
The MAPS system is designed
for non-destructive testing (NDT) inspections
of complex surfaces. It is
a lightweight, portable, passive arm
that continuously measures the full
absolute position and orientation of
a probe as it is moved along any surface.
Thickness data from the probe
is combined with
positional data
from MAPS to create fully-encoded
scans of complex surfaces.
Manual fitness-for-service inspections
can be used for many assets, but
this approach lacks verifiability, HEBI
14
says, because there is no practical
way of measuring and encoding the
inspection. Automated ultrasonic testing
(AUT) systems enable the collection
of encoded data, but are limited to
simple surfaces, such as straight runs
of piping, tank walls and plates. HEBI's
MAPS system combines the flexibility
of manual inspection with the robust
Dover
data collection of AUT.
" The MAPS system can improve
personnel safety by reducing the time
spent by technicians in dangerous or
confined areas because they can obtain
NDT inspection data faster, " says
Bob Raida, COO of HEBI Robotics.
Other advantages come in the realm
of improving data quality, Raida says.
" Because scans are anchored to
an absolute position in the world,
it allows a confident alignment and
comparison of multiple inspections
over time. It removes the variability
among different inspectors, " he
adds. The first deliveries of the system
will occur in Q4 2020.
HEBI's long-term vision is to accelerate
the incorporation of robots
into industrial settings by developing
robotics tools that can be used
to solve problems by engineers who
are not robotics experts. " We want
to bring the power of robotics and
automation development to the
subject-matter experts at the plant
sites, " Raida says. Right now, robots
are difficult to build because doing
so involves a synergy of many engineering
disciplines. If robots can
become part of a 'toolbox' that is
accessible to plant engineers, then
they can build the robots to do what
they need, " he adds.
Quality control inspections
Robots can assist
in
applications
where quality control is critical, such
as in the manufacture of single-use
medical devices, such as syringes,
vials and catheters. All units must
be visually inspected before being
released for shipping, a function that
has been done manually. Manual
inspection poses several problems,
because it can be difficult to find
qualified employees, and worker can
fatigue during a shift can alter decision
making in inspections. This can
negatively impact quality control.
In
one
example,
robots
from
FIGURE 6. Robotic tuggers can move raw materials
and completed parts around a facility, reducing
potential safety risks
Stäubli International AG (Pfäffikon,
Switzerland; www.staubli.com) were
employed to support automated
inspection of medical catheters.
In this application, molded catheters
are dispensed into a vibratory
feeder system, where they are oriented
correctly and delivered into
a servo escapement. The escapement
separates eight catheters at a
time for pickup by a servo transfer
robotic arm. Two Stäubli TX2-60L
six-axis robots handle the catheters
after inspection, with high precision
and while maintaining hygienic standards.
The robot controller is integrated
seamlessly into one programming
platform.
After catheters are inspected for
defects and noncompliance, the
Stäubli robot picks the catheters off
the transfer arm and separates those
that failed inspection. The end-ofarm
tooling on the robot features an
eight-position gripper assembly that
can individually select and release the
catheter, as required. Control of the
eight grippers is accomplished using
a pneumatic manifold mounted directly
on the arm of the robot. Each
cell can inspect, sort and package
over 50 catheters a minute.
Plant surveillance and security
Plant security and surveillance is
another area in which autonomous
robots have seen traction. For example,
SMP Robotics Systems Corp.
(Sausalito, Calif., www.smprobotics.
com), offers fully autonomous, selfdriving
surveillance robots that are
designed to navigate in a wide variety
of weather conditions on any terrain
in daylight or night. SMP Robotics
service robots monitor security
and safety of designated perimeters
in fully autonomous mode. They conduct
an inspection for gas leaks, air
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING WWW.CHEMENGONLINE.COM DECEMBER 2020
http://www.mhi.com http://www.staubli.com http://www.hebirobotics.com http://www.ri.cmu.edu http://www.smprobotics http://WWW.CHEMENGONLINE.COM
Chemical Engineering December 2020

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