Robotic Solutions for Industrial Inspection - Chemical Plant Scenario

Robotic Solutions for Industrial Inspection and Process Monitoring
The FZI Research Center for Information Technology was part of the AIRA Challenge (Advanced Industrial Robotic Applications) on service and inspection tasks in chemical plant scenarios at ACHEMA 2022. The FZI teamed up with the United Robotics Group (URG) and was able to solve the different tasks within the AIRA Challenge. The video was shot after the finale in Frankfurt, Germany.
The goal was to create innovative robotic solutions for industrial inspection, service and process monitoring tasks. Inspection and monitoring are routine jobs that have to be done day by day in the process industry. The FZI develops robotic solutions to meet these requirements by combining robust state-of-the-art hard- and software with innovative, modular approaches.
The Boston Dynamics robot Spot (with a robotic arm) that was used in the challenge is an example of an off-the-shelf platform that combines high mobility and robustness. ROS-based software such as the FZI’s VDB 3D mapping, 3D path planning, or behavior trees for defining a mission is applied together with software and functions provided by Boston Dynamics. Due to the combination, the four-legged walking robot was able to navigate over obstacles like stairs with ease. Even different floorings, pushing levers and opening valves with the arm were successfully mastered: AI image analysis and depth data enabled autonomous navigation as well as grasping and the application of forces of more than 50N.
Watch our videos to see for yourself what solutions the FZI comes up with - to solve the key challenges of industrial inspection and process monitoring. Let us know in the comments what you think about our approach on plant scenarios!