Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SIMAR (Safe Inspection and Maintenance supporting workers with modular robots, Artificial intelligence, and augmented Reality)
Período documentado: 2022-09-01 hasta 2024-02-29
SIMAR proposes a new type of inspection robot that is composed of an aerial system with advanced navigation capabilities that will allow to safely land on pipes, even if they are located in complex and cluttered locations and deploy and light-weight crawlers that integrate either adapted X-ray or PEC (Pulsed Eddy-Current) sensors to perform complete inspections of insulated pipes.
The main purpose of SIMAR resides on keeping the human workers of dangerous industrial plants in a location, where inspection and maintenance activities can be performed in a safe and healthy way. This will be done by applying the MOVE, SUPPORT and UNDERSTAND functionalities, integrated into a unique system, validated in a controlled
environment, and finally demonstrated in a real operational industrial facility of the SIMAR end-users. MOVE will be implemented by robots with flying and crawling locomotion, SUPPORT by the application of Augmented Reality, and UNDERSTAND by means of Artificial Intelligence.
In order to overcome the above challenge, SIMAR will pursue four objectives:
1. Multipurpose aerial/ground robotic system to keep away workers from dangerous situations for a safe, robust, and trusted inspection.
2.Artificial Intelligence and augmented reality systems to reduce human workload and level of stress.
3.Human-centered robotics inspection system
4.TRL7 validation and demonstration on an operational petrochemical facility taking into account end-users' requirements.
SIMAR consortium is formed by 7 high-profile European partners (CATEC, AUTH, QUASSET, CHEVRON, VES, USE and BASF) from 5 EU Member States, which have been carefully selected for their proven experience, as well as their complementarity and transnationality, in order to give the necessary knowledge, expertise, and cutting-edge background to assure the success of the project.
The main purpose of SIMAR resides on keeping the human workers of dangerous industrial plants in a location, where inspection and maintenance activities can be performed in a safe and healthy way. This will be done by applying the MOVE, SUPPORT and UNDERSTAND functionalities, integrated into a unique system, validated in a controlled
environment, and finally demonstrated in a real operational industrial facility of the SIMAR end-users. MOVE will be implemented by robots with flying and crawling locomotion, SUPPORT by the application of Augmented Reality, and UNDERSTAND by means of Artificial Intelligence.
In order to overcome the above challenge, SIMAR will pursue four objectives:
1. Multipurpose aerial/ground robotic system to keep away workers from dangerous situations for a safe, robust, and trusted inspection.
2.Artificial Intelligence and augmented reality systems to reduce human workload and level of stress.
3.Human-centered robotics inspection system
4.TRL7 validation and demonstration on an operational petrochemical facility taking into account end-users' requirements.
SIMAR consortium is formed by 7 high-profile European partners (CATEC, AUTH, QUASSET, CHEVRON, VES, USE and BASF) from 5 EU Member States, which have been carefully selected for their proven experience, as well as their complementarity and transnationality, in order to give the necessary knowledge, expertise, and cutting-edge background to assure the success of the project.
WP1 - Project Management and Coordination
• To ensure efficient project management, including project governance, administration, risk management, quality control, data management, as well as scientific and technological coordination.
• To manage the administrative and financial part of the project, including planning and monitoring of expenses and management of financial flows of each beneficiary and global overview.
• To manage the interactions with the Industry Executive Committee and facilitate the users’ involvement to obtain their feedback and redirect the work, if necessary, to guarantee user-driven results.
• Reporting to the EC and, in general, the liaison with the EC.
WP2 - System Specifications and Design
• To analyze the real end-users needs and identify the technical challenges to be addressed during the execution of the project.
• To capture the end-users, project, and technical requirements and to categorize these requirements with respect to their importance and their technical feasibility.
• To define the end-user driven use cases, identify system specifications and technical functionalities, and set the validation plan.
• To carry out the conceptual design of the system and to translate it into its functional and hardware architecture, including interfaces between and within systems.
WP3 - Multipurpose Modular Inspection Robot
• To develop the advanced robotic system composed of flying and crawler robots capable of operating separately or together as a unique system.
• To develop an advanced aerial robotic inspection vehicle that uses onboard sensors to increase localization accuracy and safely fly avoiding colliding with obstacles.
• To develop two crawler robotic platforms (X-Ray and Pulsed Eddy-Current) that will be used for inspecting insulated pipes, and capable of operating alone or integrated into an aerial robot.
• To develop high-level autonomous robotic functionalities that will reduce the robotic operator effort making the system a combination of autonomous (for stressful/complex tasks) and manual (for high-level decision) functionalities.
WP4 - Intelligent Support of Workers
• To develop an artificial intelligence system that will analyze all the captured data by SIMAR robotic systems to reduce the inspector workload and stress.
• To develop an augmented reality system that will allow humans to use the robotic system keeping enough distance from the danger and, at the same time, performing the inspection robustly.
• To develop decision-making tools and a ground control system that allows the human to decide the inspection plan and support the inspection operation.
WP5 - System Integration
• To integrate the technologies developed in WP3 and WP4 into a single robotics system.
• To validate and test the integrated robotic system at controlled environment facilities.
WP6 - Validation
• To prepare all the needed flying permits and internal petrochemical facility permits that will allow performing the validation.
• To organize and prepare the validation pilot logistics.
• To perform a TRL 7 validation, meaning the system prototype will be demonstrated in an operational petrochemical facility.
• To evaluate the system’s performance concerning the end-users’ requirements defined at WP2, focusing with more detail on the human workers’ evaluation.
WP7 - Exploitation, Communication and Dissemination
• To develop a strategy for market uptake and deployment of developed and demonstrated solutions.
• To develop standards and guidelines for CUI inspection using a modular robot with PEC and X-ray sensors.
• To develop a Dissemination plan for informing the scientific and technical community as well as the targeted audience on advances beyond the state of the art and prototype demonstrations; policy makers, potential exploitation partners and end-user customers in global markets and encourage customer demand for this type of system.
• Creating a mechanism for collaboration with DIH CSA and other European projects and standardization entities related to Robotics for Inspection and Maintenance.
WP8 - Social, Ethical and Legal (SoEL) Issue
• Identifying the applicable SoEL legal, data protection, privacy, and ethical principles.
• Design and coordination of all the procedures and protocols necessary for handling social, legal and ethical issues during the whole project research process.
• Execution of an impact assessment to discern how the SoEL principles are likely to apply in order to identify the necessary changes in the design and implementation of SIMAR solution to comply with all the SoEL requirements.
• Continuous monitoring of the impacts upon SoEL requirements during the whole project.
WP9 - Ethics requirements
• The objective is to ensure compliance with the 'ethics requirements' set out in this work package.
• To ensure efficient project management, including project governance, administration, risk management, quality control, data management, as well as scientific and technological coordination.
• To manage the administrative and financial part of the project, including planning and monitoring of expenses and management of financial flows of each beneficiary and global overview.
• To manage the interactions with the Industry Executive Committee and facilitate the users’ involvement to obtain their feedback and redirect the work, if necessary, to guarantee user-driven results.
• Reporting to the EC and, in general, the liaison with the EC.
WP2 - System Specifications and Design
• To analyze the real end-users needs and identify the technical challenges to be addressed during the execution of the project.
• To capture the end-users, project, and technical requirements and to categorize these requirements with respect to their importance and their technical feasibility.
• To define the end-user driven use cases, identify system specifications and technical functionalities, and set the validation plan.
• To carry out the conceptual design of the system and to translate it into its functional and hardware architecture, including interfaces between and within systems.
WP3 - Multipurpose Modular Inspection Robot
• To develop the advanced robotic system composed of flying and crawler robots capable of operating separately or together as a unique system.
• To develop an advanced aerial robotic inspection vehicle that uses onboard sensors to increase localization accuracy and safely fly avoiding colliding with obstacles.
• To develop two crawler robotic platforms (X-Ray and Pulsed Eddy-Current) that will be used for inspecting insulated pipes, and capable of operating alone or integrated into an aerial robot.
• To develop high-level autonomous robotic functionalities that will reduce the robotic operator effort making the system a combination of autonomous (for stressful/complex tasks) and manual (for high-level decision) functionalities.
WP4 - Intelligent Support of Workers
• To develop an artificial intelligence system that will analyze all the captured data by SIMAR robotic systems to reduce the inspector workload and stress.
• To develop an augmented reality system that will allow humans to use the robotic system keeping enough distance from the danger and, at the same time, performing the inspection robustly.
• To develop decision-making tools and a ground control system that allows the human to decide the inspection plan and support the inspection operation.
WP5 - System Integration
• To integrate the technologies developed in WP3 and WP4 into a single robotics system.
• To validate and test the integrated robotic system at controlled environment facilities.
WP6 - Validation
• To prepare all the needed flying permits and internal petrochemical facility permits that will allow performing the validation.
• To organize and prepare the validation pilot logistics.
• To perform a TRL 7 validation, meaning the system prototype will be demonstrated in an operational petrochemical facility.
• To evaluate the system’s performance concerning the end-users’ requirements defined at WP2, focusing with more detail on the human workers’ evaluation.
WP7 - Exploitation, Communication and Dissemination
• To develop a strategy for market uptake and deployment of developed and demonstrated solutions.
• To develop standards and guidelines for CUI inspection using a modular robot with PEC and X-ray sensors.
• To develop a Dissemination plan for informing the scientific and technical community as well as the targeted audience on advances beyond the state of the art and prototype demonstrations; policy makers, potential exploitation partners and end-user customers in global markets and encourage customer demand for this type of system.
• Creating a mechanism for collaboration with DIH CSA and other European projects and standardization entities related to Robotics for Inspection and Maintenance.
WP8 - Social, Ethical and Legal (SoEL) Issue
• Identifying the applicable SoEL legal, data protection, privacy, and ethical principles.
• Design and coordination of all the procedures and protocols necessary for handling social, legal and ethical issues during the whole project research process.
• Execution of an impact assessment to discern how the SoEL principles are likely to apply in order to identify the necessary changes in the design and implementation of SIMAR solution to comply with all the SoEL requirements.
• Continuous monitoring of the impacts upon SoEL requirements during the whole project.
WP9 - Ethics requirements
• The objective is to ensure compliance with the 'ethics requirements' set out in this work package.