Robotics has the potential to transform the way operations in the Oil & Gas (O&G) industry are performed in the future. The launch of an international robotics competition called the ARGOS (Autonomous Robot for Gas and Oil Sites) challenge, based on a selective contest between world class robotics consortiums is a bold way of pushing the emergence of technological solutions. In return the robotics community will become more aware of the specificities and safety requirements of the O&G industry. Having various teams competing allows different designs to be tested, fostering strong innovation and collaboration between individual consortiums.Surface robotics presents two potential major impacts: Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) (reduction of risk to personnel, environment and installation)During a series of three competitions, teams will be evaluated through the capacity of their robot to move around a human engineered competition site, representative of a typical onshore/offshore production facility, performing reporting tasks in different scenarios (routine inspection and emergency) using different autonomy levels. The technical solutions will be adapted to O&G industry specific safety requirements on practical grounds: mobility on production sites and potentially explosive atmospheres.Due to the nature of the O&G Industry and geographical locations, constraints are forced upon production installations such as tough atmospheric and stringent operating conditions. O&G operators have only recently begun researching surface robotics including the SENSABOT application, (NREC/ CMU, 2012), a mobile inspection robot developed by Carnegie Mellon University. Building upon research already carried out and technology already developed, the ARGOS challenge aims to expand on this to create the next generation of autonomous robots for the O&G industry.

Many oil & gas operators are now seeing unmanned facilities as the next frontier for safer operations and further cost reductions. However, these benefits only appear once the time between site visits is extended as much as possible. In its Next-Generation Facilities concept, Total is pushing the limits by targeting planned interventions only once a year. Tremendous challenges must be tackled to make this concept a reality, from initial lean and robust facility design to management of operations. Subsea installations remain a source of inspiration on many levels, particularly for the handling of inaccessible installations using Remote Operated Vehicles. As a result, Total has been very active in the field of autonomous ground robotics for many years with its ARGOS project. Many other oil & gas operators or robot manufacturers are also following similar paths. Consequently, more and more videos showing a robot on site, tele-operated or not, in the direct sight of a technician in charge of its control have been published. Improving robot capabilities, testing and learning how to handle these new tools is important and a very encouraging signal for the industry, but the integration and cost scaling effect are still to be demonstrated. A step change in the experimentation has to materialize, since one robot alone on a site will not be able to achieve much. Moreover, the reproduction of the scheme ‘one robot/one technician’ is not optimal when numerous robots are involved. Therefore, the addition of a new component in the field architecture in charge of bridging robot site activities and the off-site Control Room is seen as essential to rise to the next level and meet the requirement of the new operating philosophy: continuous operations with multiple robots working simultaneously on an unattended site. Total calls this new function the "Operation Room". In Total's concept, the Operation Room is located next to the existing Control Room which would also become remote. From the Operation Room, robot panel operators, very much like air traffic controllers, will remotely supervise and coordinate the robots that will autonomously perform the very activities that the field operators once used to do on conventional facilities, from routine operation and maintenance tasks to emergency response. This article will give an overview and some examples of how Total has matured the design of its Operation Room concept, including a description of the key elements that have to be addressed to manage a fleet of autonomous robots in an efficient and safe manner from a remote location.