A Set Of Mobile And Portable Robots For Nondestructive Inspection which Cover Critical Applications Across All The Key Use Industries

This paper describes the prototyping of some world first designs of mobile, portable robots which between them cover important safety critical applications across the spectrum of key civil and industrial engineering structures such as aircraft, ships, dams, nuclear power plant and storage tanks located in hazardous environments. The systems include novel features such as being able to climb over surfaces of complex contour to deploy the inspection sensors at each test point, ability to change surfaces, to work submerged in hazardous liquids and to scan large test areas. The rationale for using a robotic approach to NDT data acquisition is presented, given that it does involve some complexity in instrumentation design compared with current practice. A modular approach using as great a proportion of off-the-shelf components as possible has been used to greatly reduce the prototyping time