Current and Future Research Focus on Inspection of Vertical Structures in Oil and Gas Industry

Regular inspection of oil and gas installations are vital for production, maintenance, safety and environmental impact assessment. Due to complex set-up and hazardous operation environment, the inspection, maintenance and repair (IMR) operations as considered as an inevitable task in oil and gas industries. Integrating technologies from the field of robotics, sensing and process control will be a decisive step in digitalization of oil and gas industry. The traditional vertical structures inspection system uses rope access, scaffolds, telescopic elevation platforms supported by cranes and manned helicopters. The challenges faced by conventional techniques are the construction of scaffolding, sending inspectors into dangerous and fatal environments, shutdown of plant operations etc. that has financial burden on the plant operating cost. Introduction of robotic technologies such as wall-climbing robots, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and wall-climbing drones, provides a possible solution for these challenges by increasing the efficiency, reducing the risks and lowering the cost of IMR tasks. The current research focus in this field is to automate and improve the inspection and testing capabilities of these systems. This paper presents the state of art of current scenario and future research focus on vertical structure inspection in oil and gas industry.