A modular inspection robot platform for power plant applications

Abstract

This paper presents a novel approach for a modular robotic platform to support power plant inspection. In a first part the paper gives an overview over the challenges and benefits of robotic inspection on power generation equipment. The industry requirements are presented and discussed on a general level. The second part of the paper focus on the modular platform itself. The overall modular architecture is described and the various robotic modules with the various design features are presented and discussed. Based on the modular architecture a local navigation and control system is introduced providing the details on the architecture, the sensors used and the different algorithms implemented. At the example of a volumetric non destructive inspection of steam turbine rotor shafts and the inspection of electro static precipitators the variety of possible system configurations is presented. The paper closes with a brief discussion of the results achieved.