Today’s industrial field robotic inspection systems at sites such as energy facilities, maritime facilities and ports, and infrastructure asset locations save lives by moving workers from harm’s way and preventing catastrophic accidents.

Utilizing data from robotic inspection systems, NDE 4.0 increases
the lifesaving capability of these inspections
by moving human workers from harm’s way,
and by enabling more accurate insights
into the structures (aka assets) at these facilities and locations.

NDE 4.0 enables the extrapolation of knowledge concerning the asset’s operational and functional viability, future operational requirements and needs, as well as estimated future performance and efficacy. From underwater remote inspections of structures used for offshore oil exploration and drilling to ground-based robots crawling up the walls of above-ground storage tanks and boilers, to drones flying around flare stacks, there is no shortage of either different types of assets or modalities of robotic inspection systems in service, all of which can benefit from the knowledge NDE 4.0 helps create.

NDE 4.0 is a force multiplier for inspecting, testing, and evaluating industrial assets for their safety, operational effectiveness, and usefulness. NDE 4.0 generated knowledge, insights, and understandings can turn data gathered from industrial inspection robots into actionable information to enhance and extend knowledge-based information-driven decision making. As inspection robots are “data-gathering machines,” they can gather more data and “see” more than inspections completed by people. This is exactly where NDE 4.0 brings value.

While industrial inspections are necessary and critical, they can be very dangerous and very expensive. Inspection robotics and automation help organizations improve safety and reduce costs. The value creation NDE 4.0 enables is so compelling, and for it to be as effective as possible requires so much data, that it is a foregone conclusion that the data gathering industrial inspection robotics market will grow exponentially to feed data to NDE 4.0.

Learn more about this chapter of the Handbook of Nondestructive Evaluation 4.0 pp 641-661 here.

Keywords

Inspection robot Remote inspection ROV Drone NDE inspection Visual inspection Contact-based inspection Robot Industrial robot inspection

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(1) Image copyright JADE GAO from MSN Article "Beijing shuts roads, playgrounds amid heavy smog after coal spike" Retrieved November 5, 2021

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