Charlotte Skourup

Augmented reality for programming industrial robots

Existing practice for programming robots involves teaching it a sequence of waypoints in addition to process-related events, which defines the complete robot path. The programming process is time consuming, error prone and, in most cases, requires several iterations before the program quality is acceptable. By introducing augmented reality technologies in this programming process, the operator gets instant real-time, visual feedback of a simulated process in relation to the real object, resulting in reduced programming time and increased quality of the resulting robot program. This paper presents a demonstrator of a standalone augmented reality pilot system allowing an operator to program robot waypoints and process specific events related to paint applications. During the programming sequence, the system presents visual feedback of the paint result for the operator, allowing him to inspect the process result before the robot has performed the actual task.

Robot automation in oil and gas facilities: Indoor and onsite demonstrations

Given the importance and focus of the oil and gas industry related to safety, environmental impact, cost efficiency and increased production, the potential for more extensive use of automation in general, and robotic technology in particular, is evident. The specific role of robots in this context will be to perform various inspection and manipulation operations which human field operators perform today. In this paper, we initially present an overview of the current trends and challenges within the oil and gas industry. This is followed by the latest results from our work towards realizing next generation robotized oil and gas facilities. These activities encompass indoor lab experiments, as well as outdoor demonstrations onsite. The onsite demonstration reported in this paper has been completed together with Shell and comprises the worlds first prototype of a robot performing automatic scraper handling in real operational environments.

A step-wise approach to oil and gas robotics

Abstract Developing a reliable and intelligent robotic system which enables the remote operation of normally unmanned oil and gas facilities requires innovative and novel technical solutions. Our strategy for meeting these challenges is based on a step-wise approach involving development and validation of the technology in increasingly demanding settings. This starts with proof-of-concept demonstrations in our indoor test facility located in Oslo, Norway. Taking this one step further, robots and applications are further developed, tested and validated in a colocated outdoor test facility. This is normally an intermediate step before bringing demonstrators onto real oil and gas facilities. In this paper, this design philosophy is elaborated upon and illustrated using the development of a valve manipulation application as an example.

3D visualization of integrated process information

Industrial plants are complex and consist of a large number of components. Human operators are responsible for operating these processes. Operators use the interface daily and strongly depend on information from the system and the possibilities to execute control commands in the system. This interactive demonstration uses a 3D process model of the plant area as the user interface for control systems. This interface supports extended information integration and remote collaboration.

CAN VISUALISATION IMPROVE REMOTE COLLABORATION

Abstract Collaboration is recognised as essential to achieve efficient and safe operation of industrial processes. This paper presents a comparison test of a P&ID-based schematic representation, a 2D map and a 3D visualisation for remote one-to-one collaborative tasks. The results indicate that the participants had a higher completion rate of tasks based on the 2D and 3D interfaces, and they experienced fewer communication errors. The main conclusion is that the choice of visualisation technique for the interface should strongly depend on the specific task. 3D and 2D interfaces afford to use spatial references more and more intuitively whereas the schematic interface supports the use of topological references better than the others.