RoboGasInspector - A Mobile Robotic System for Remote Leak Sensing and Localization in Large Industrial Environments: Overview and First Results

Soldan, Samuel; Bonow, Gero; Kroll, Andreas

doi:10.3182/20120531-2-no-4020.00005

Cited by 31 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…Another notable feature is the gas sensor controlled switch that shuts down the robot and other devices connected to it when observing 10% of the lower explosion limit in order to prevent the robot from igniting a flammable atmosphere. Similar feature can be found in the RoboGasInspector, which is a robot system for gas leakage detection in industrial facilities [10]. The gas-sensing payload of the RoboGasInspector includes a remote methane leak detector, and an optical thermal imaging camera to visualize gases of relatively high concentrations.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 98%

Towards Gas Discrimination and Mapping in Emergency Response Scenarios Using a Mobile Robot with an Electronic Nose

Fan

Bennetts

Schaffernicht

et al. 2019

Sensors

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Emergency personnel, such as firefighters, bomb technicians, and urban search and rescue specialists, can be exposed to a variety of extreme hazards during the response to natural and human-made disasters. In many of these scenarios, a risk factor is the presence of hazardous airborne chemicals. The recent and rapid advances in robotics and sensor technologies allow emergency responders to deal with such hazards from relatively safe distances. Mobile robots with gas-sensing capabilities allow to convey useful information such as the possible source positions of different chemicals in the emergency area. However, common gas sampling procedures for laboratory use are not applicable due to the complexity of the environment and the need for fast deployment and analysis. In addition, conventional gas identification approaches, based on supervised learning, cannot handle situations when the number and identities of the present chemicals are unknown. For the purpose of emergency response, all the information concluded from the gas detection events during the robot exploration should be delivered in real time. To address these challenges, we developed an online gas-sensing system using an electronic nose. Our system can automatically perform unsupervised learning and update the discrimination model as the robot is exploring a given environment. The online gas discrimination results are further integrated with geometrical information to derive a multi-compound gas spatial distribution map. The proposed system is deployed on a robot built to operate in harsh environments for supporting fire brigades, and is validated in several different real-world experiments of discriminating and mapping multiple chemical compounds in an indoor open environment. Our results show that the proposed system achieves high accuracy in gas discrimination in an online, unsupervised, and computationally efficient manner. The subsequently created gas distribution maps accurately indicate the presence of different chemicals in the environment, which is of practical significance for emergency response.

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Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 98%

Towards Gas Discrimination and Mapping in Emergency Response Scenarios Using a Mobile Robot with an Electronic Nose

Fan

Bennetts

Schaffernicht

et al. 2019

Sensors

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“…Grinham, Dunbabin, Gale, and Udy (2011) attached a single-path Optical Methane Detector (OMD) to an Autonomous Surface Vessel (ASV, robotic vessel) in order to map areas of ebullitive CH 4 emissions and to estimate the spatial-temporal release rates across an entire water storage site. Soldan et al proposed a mobile robot called RoboGas Inspector for routine inspections in large industrial environments (Soldan, Bonow, & Kroll, 2012). The mobile robot is equipped with a pan-tilt mounted sensor head consisting of, i.a., a TDLAS sensor and a thermographic camera for gas visualization.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aerial-based gas tomography – from single beams to complex gas distributions

Neumann

Kohlhoff

Hüllmann

et al. 2019

European Journal of Remote Sensing

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In this paper, we present and validate the concept of an autonomous aerial robot to reconstruct tomographic 2D slices of gas plumes in outdoor environments. Our platform, the so-called Unmanned Aerial Vehicle for Remote Gas Sensing (UAV-REGAS), combines a lightweight Tunable Diode Laser Absorption Spectroscopy (TDLAS) gas sensor with a 3-axis aerial stabilization gimbal for aiming at a versatile octocopter. While the TDLAS sensor provides integral gas concentration measurements, it does not measure the distance traveled by the laser diode's beam nor the distribution of gas along the optical path. Thus, we complement the setup with a laser rangefinder and apply principles of Computed Tomography (CT) to create a model of the spatial gas distribution from a set of integral concentration measurements. To allow for a fundamental ground truth evaluation of the applied gas tomography algorithm, we set up a unique outdoor test environment based on two 3D ultrasonic anemometers and a distributed array of 10 infrared gas transmitters. We present results showing its performance characteristics and 2D plume reconstruction capabilities under realistic conditions. The proposed system can be deployed in scenarios that cannot be addressed by currently available robots and thus constitutes a significant step forward for the field of Mobile Robot Olfaction (MRO).

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“…Jin et al [3] measured the performance of a ventilation system for room air renewal by means of a mobile robot equipped with carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and volatile organic compound (VOC) sensors and a stationary sensor network, showing that the robot can provide more accurate estimates of the air quality. Mobile robots equipped with gas detectors were also used in outdoor applications for pollution monitoring and source localization in public areas [4], surveillance of industrial facilities producing harmful gases [5], and monitoring of landfill sites [6]. More recently, gas monitoring outdoors was also addressed using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), although with more size and power constraint limitations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Application of an Array of Metal-Oxide Semiconductor Gas Sensors in an Assistant Personal Robot for Early Gas Leak Detection

Palacín

Martínez

Clotet

et al. 2019

Sensors

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This paper proposes the application of a low-cost gas sensor array in an assistant personal robot (APR) in order to extend the capabilities of the mobile robot as an early gas leak detector for safety purposes. The gas sensor array is composed of 16 low-cost metal-oxide (MOX) gas sensors, which are continuously in operation. The mobile robot was modified to keep the gas sensor array always switched on, even in the case of battery recharge. The gas sensor array provides 16 individual gas measurements and one output that is a cumulative summary of all measurements, used as an overall indicator of a gas concentration change. The results of preliminary experiments were used to train a partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) classifier with air, ethanol, and acetone as output classes. Then, the mobile robot gas leak detection capabilities were experimentally evaluated in a public facility, by forcing the evaporation of (1) ethanol, (2) acetone, and (3) ethanol and acetone at different locations. The positive results obtained in different operation conditions over the course of one month confirmed the early detection capabilities of the proposed mobile system. For example, the APR was able to detect a gas leak produced inside a closed room from the external corridor due to small leakages under the door induced by the forced ventilation system of the building.

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RoboGasInspector - A Mobile Robotic System for Remote Leak Sensing and Localization in Large Industrial Environments: Overview and First Results

Cited by 31 publications

References 1 publication

Towards Gas Discrimination and Mapping in Emergency Response Scenarios Using a Mobile Robot with an Electronic Nose

Towards Gas Discrimination and Mapping in Emergency Response Scenarios Using a Mobile Robot with an Electronic Nose

Aerial-based gas tomography – from single beams to complex gas distributions

Application of an Array of Metal-Oxide Semiconductor Gas Sensors in an Assistant Personal Robot for Early Gas Leak Detection

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