First Proof of Concept for an Integrated Robot Supervision System

Abstract

TotalEnergies’ use of robotics on remote or offshore sites is considered with the objective of enabling unmanned operation for long periods and as the next frontier for increased personnel safety, industry attractiveness for young talents and further OPEX and CAPEX reduction. TotalEnergies performed several IT/OT system architecture evolutions and developed a specific Robot Supervision System (RSS) equivalent to a fleet management system to help and consolidate know-how in the deployments of specific mobile ground robots. As the first autonomous and explosion-proof inspection ground robots become commercial, many have difficulties seeing how these new devices can be interfaced with legacy industrial systems and how its data can be represented in a user-friendly interface to make the remote operation of robot efficient & attractive enough. Only this level of interfacing will enable the possibility for automated inspection, operation, and maintenance tasks execution with intuitive programmable interfaces. The robotic devices also need also to comply with detailed specifications in order to communicate its data in real time to the supervision system. We will describe the specific modifications required to the robot associated systems to be used within a private industrial network and the specification for real time interfacing of its data. Many Robot suppliers initiated their system developments focusing on robot navigation but a lot of the interfacing complexity with operator companies remained to be achieved to exchange data with the site digital twin, the maintenance task planning tool, the cloud machine learning software resources, or the Process Data Management System (PDMS) or even the plant control system (DCS). The associated functionalities of the RSS will also be presented: Acquisition, historization and user-friendly display of robot's dataIntegrate several robot types or from several vendorsInterface with all company systemsVisual 3D digital twin environment to display data acquired by the robot or useful data for its remote operationIntuitive configuration and management of robot for routine tasks or based on a specific plant event or alarmComply with specific industrial cybersecurity rules Feedback will also be given on how it has been possible to adapt the IT architectures and how we intend to fit the requirements of OT systems to adopt robots with more critical interactions with the industrial process. We can present our approach for upscaling robot deployment with this on-premises supervision systems capable of historizing the data, generating immersive front-end displays for robots’ operators and managing secured interconnections to corporate systems. Figure 1An experienced operator using the RSS - View of the 2 main dashboard types (summary mashups & 3D view)