Proceedings of2013IEEE
International Conference on Mechatronics and Automation
August 4 - 7, Takamatsu, Japan
A Review of Robotics In Onshore Oil-Gas Industry
Amit Shukla and Hamad Karki
Department of Mechanical Engineering
The Petroleum Institute, Abu Dhabi, UAE
{ashukla, hkarki}@pi.ac.ae
Abstract- With shrinking resources and increasing demand for
petroleum products, oil and gas industries are forced to rethink
over their present pace for automatization of industry. New oil
fields, mostly located in extreme conditions, are posing serious
challenges to both human and environment in terms of safety.
Tasks which are repeated, dirty, and dangerous and require high
degree of accuracy are already automatized in manufacturing
industry. This success has inspired oil and gas industry to lend
some of its highly dangerous and repetitive tasks for automation.
Most of the processes are remotely operated, and require highly
skilled operator. Such processes benefits not only in terms of
overall health and safety, by removing humans from hazardous
environment, but also by reduction of number staff members
required for continuous inspection and manipulation of plant
facilities. Considering the sensitivity of inflammable products
involved in this industry usage of completely autonomous robots
is still a far fetch choice. Therefore, semi-autonomous robots
are excellent choice for this industry at-least as near future
solution. In oil and gas industry, robots are used both in
upstream and downstream process such as pipe handling in
drilling operations, pipe inspection , tank inspection, and remote
controlled underwater vehicles (ROVs). This paper presents the
state of art technology particularly related to application of
robotic solutions to in-pipe inspection robots (lPIRs) and tank
inspection robots (TIRs) at onshore oil and gas facilities.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Global demand for oil and gas, is increasing with increasing
industrial growth and will remain high in foreseeable future.
With ever increasing consumption, at present it is 142 Mboe/d
(million barrels of oil equivalent per day), easy resources of
petroleum products are shrinking very fast, and remaining
oil and gas fields are characterized by such adjectives as
arctic, deep-water, cold, heavy, high in water content, high
sulfur content, to name but a few [1]. Increased production
demand and difficult oil fields have not only increased the
cost of production, but also compounded the risks related
to human security and environmental safety. Recent tragic
events such as the Deep Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of
Mexico [2] has caught attention of not only governments
and environmentalists but also of all the major players from
the petroleum industry for necessity of safer exploration of
oil and gas [3]. The process of protecting the environment
from oil spill, by running damage control and cleanup oper­
ations and setting up the funds for compensating victims of
tragedy, has costed almost US$20 billion to BP [4]. In the
wake of several terrible oil spill crisis, European Commission
has funded several research projects with main objective of
developing innovative intelligent robot technologies for oil spill
management [5], [6]. Growing challenges within industry, such
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as lower recovery rate, exploration of unconventional reserves
and operation in extreme environmental conditions, has put
need for raising the level of automation high on the agenda
[7]. There are several critical parameters for operation of oil
and gas industries such as safety of human lives, environmental
concern, cost efficiency, optimization of profitability of busi­
ness model and increased production. Strategies for successful
handling of above mentioned challenges, call for new radical
innovations such as intelligent drilling rigs, smart inspection
and manipulation, and automated operations for production.
For example a Norwegian company named Robotic Drilling
Systems, has signed a joint research program with NASA
to develop technology for intelligent drilling [3]. ABB has
also developed a robotics-based remote automation system
prototype, capable of performing inspection and maintenance
of an oil and gas process module [7]. Though most of the
robotic technology in oil and gas industry is still used in a
manner of operation assistant in the process of inspection,
manipulation and rescue missions.
II. R OBOTICS IN ONSHORE CONDITIONS
Oil and gas industry has extensive usage of all kinds of
pipes and storage tanks during different stages of business
starting from exploration, extraction, transportation, processing
and distribution. P ipes and storage tanks need regular inspec­
tion and maintenance especially those continuously used for
long distance transportation and long term storage. Humanly
inspecting these components are expensive and hazardous, so
automated inspection and manipulation for these components
are very much desired. Most of the robotic research, for oil
and gas industry, has been dedicated to developing in-pipe
inspection robots (IPIRs) and tanks inspection robots (TIRs).
A. Pipe inspection
At onshore petroleum plants, pipes are used as a tool for
transportation of oil, gas and other fluids, from production sites
to distribution sites. These pipes are mostly laid down under
water or underground environment. In such environments pipes
are subjected to extreme weather conditions such as hot, cold,
humidity and dust. These unfavorable conditions lead to many
troubles in pipes such as corrosion, erosion, deposition, cracks,
thermal cycling, pitting, shock loading and joint-failure etc.
[8]. Any kind of leakage of petroleum products from pipes not
only causes loss of revenue but also invites ecological disaster.
Therefore, regular inspection and maintenance of transporta­
tion pipes are strongly demanded for safe operation. Traditional
1153
way of digging and manually detecting the temporal position
of these flaws for underground pipes are not only inconvenient
but also expensive. IPIRs equipped with nondestructive testing
(NDT) of these flaws holds the key for future development in
this field [9]. These IPIRs are inserted in the pipe from a inlet
point and travel inside the pipe under external supervision.
There are various causes and kinds of flaws, and for them
there are appropriate inspection techniques, such as visual
inspection (HD pan-tilt-zoom cameras), X-ray, eddy currents,
acoustics and ultrasonics. Most of the IPIRs are teleoperated
and connected by tethered cable to the operator [10], [11].
There are five essential parameters to categorize IP IR:
1) Shape and size of robots: There are pipes of various
shapes (straight line, elbow-shape and T-shape etc.) and sizes
(different radii) involved in the oil and gas industries according
to usage and flow conditions. Therefore, shape and size of
pipes are one of the major parameter to affect the design
of IPIR for example micro-robots [12]-[18] are required for
smaller size pipes. There are mainly two type of mechanism
for adaptation of varying radii of the pipes namely active
linkage type and passive linkage type [19]. In active linkage
type, separate actuators are installed to apply normal force to
generate required traction power [20]. Therefore, this mecha­
nism requires more space and expensive from manufacturing
point of view. Whereas, passive linkage mechanism is designed
merely with elastic components such as spring. This arrange­
ment leads to simplicity of control mechanism and inexpensive
manufacturing of robot. Inspection robots described in [21]­
[24] have used simple spring on the main axis of robot.
2) Steering mechanism: Most of the robots are designed
to pass through horizontal pipe structures but urban gas pipe
lines have complicated structures due to complex distribution
networks. Therefore, successful navigation through these trans­
portation pipes requires in-pipe robots to steer through com­
plex shapes such as vertical, elbow and branched. There are
mainly two categories of steering mechanism firstly articulated
type and secondly differential type. Articulated steering is a
mechanism which allows a robot to take turn in restricted
space around a pivot located on the robot body by splitting
the total body of the robot in front half and back half. This
kind of steering mechanism is directly inspired by movement
of the snake and the annelid animal in nature. There are
several kinds of articulated steering mechanisms depending
on how steering is activated around the pivot point such as
steering joint [25]-[27], double active universal joint [28],
[29], and rubber gas actuated joint [30]. There are several
successful IPIRs based on the differential steering mechanism
as well [31]-[37]. Differential drive is a mechanism which
allows turning of the vehicle by modulating the speeds of the
wheels depending on the desired direction for turning [31],
[33]. Since, inside the pipe traction surface is 3-D curved
rather than planer, hence it requires sophisticated speed control
mechanism to avoid slippings of wheels inside the pipe [24].
These requirements for knowledge of the pipe geometry and
locus of contact points makes this mechanism complicated
1154
problem of control.
3) Propelling mechanism: Every IPIR must have some
propelling mechanism to navigate inside the pipe apart from
steering mechanism. There are many different kinds of navi­
gation technologies used by in-pipe robots depending on the
requirements of the operations such as P ig type [38], [39],
Wheel type [11], [14], [21], [24], [28], [29], [31], [33], [40]­
[48], Snake type [49]-[52], Legged mobile type or Walking
type [53]-[56], Caterpillar type [8], [19], [57], Wall-press type
[28], [43], [57], Inch-worm type [12], [13], [15], [16], [30],
[58]-[68], and Screw type [12], [63], [64], [69], [70] etc. Most
of the published research works about IPIRs are concerned
with in-pipe navigation of robots because with increasing
complexity of the pipes, navigation becomes challenging task.
The pig type robot is collection of capsule type metallic
body, rubber disk for support from pipe walls, ultra-sonic
transducers for detection, and odometer for distance calcu­
lations. Rubber disk not only get support from the wall but
also blocks the in-pipe fluid to get passively driven by it [38].
Drawback of this mechanism is that, robot keep on rotating
around its central axis. P assively driven in-pipe robots perform
poor on various occasions such as when fluid pressure inside
pipes are low and transportation pipes have complex shapes
(Branched and vertical). Wheel type IPIRs are proposed to
overcome these shortcomings [21]. Wheel based robots have
many advantages such as easy speed, direction control and
higher energy efficiency but suffer from complex steering
mechanism and instability during navigation. To overcome this
instability, springs are used to press the in-pipe walls against
wheels of the robot [43]. This pressing of walls gives extra
friction force for better slip-less operation and adaptability of
robot to different sizes of transportation pipes. [28] describes a
mechanism in which legs of the robot, which contain wheels,
are stretched and contracted radially to generate wall pressure.
This pressure gives all the above mentioned benefits and
saves body of robot from distortion forces when it crosses
over obstacles such as steps, reducers, protrusions inside the
pipes. It can be observed that most of these wheel based
inspection robots generate traction power by pressing the pipe
wall passively or actively. These wheel based robots get stuck
inside the pipe when there are sharp comers, steps, sudden big
change in pipe cross-section and variable surface roughness.
As a alternative to wheel based locomotion, legged type robots
have been proposed in [53]. The higher flexibility of legs,
improves the performance of robot crossing the obstacles and
turning around joints and comers [56].
Design of IPIRs for the inspection of pipes of small diam­
eters by using wheel based locomotion mechanism is really a
challenge. Wheel based robots require heavy motors and gear
systems, and usage of other kind of actuators such as piezoac­
tuators suffer from lower traction forces [69]. Therefore, two
locomotion mechanisms free from electrical machines are
proposed firstly inch-worm type robots and secondly screw
type robots, for inspection of small diameter pipes. Earth worm
is a creature which moves forward by swelling its bodily
rings and then propagating it in forward direction [12]. This
locomotion mechanism has inspired researchers to design inch­
worm robots, which do not require bulky and costly electrical
motors and wheels. Apart from being cheaper and lighter in
weight absence of electrical machines makes inch-worm robots
safer and suitable for working in explosion risk areas [66].
These robots have flexible structure which is divided mainly
in three parts backward clamp, middle part and forward clamp.
First backward part expand radially to generate support from
the wall, while middle part get elongated longitudinally to
move forward and then backward clamp get contracted and
forward clamp get expanded radially to generate support [15],
[68]. However, many of these inch-worm robots, such as [30],
[66], were not effective because of their low speed and poor
reliability. Screw-type robots can freely move backward and
forward, inside the pipe of smaller diameter, based on the
principle of screw. [69] has proposed a robot which has two
units, separated by a micro electromagnetic motor, and one
unit is fixed to rotating shaft and another to casing. This
arrangement forces shaft and casing to rotate in opposite
direction so that robot moves forward. This kind of robot
is mainly used for precise motion inside smaller diameter
pipes with very low payload and unsuitable for complex pipe
structures. Flexibility of the robot body is a key factor for
its ability to pass through complex shapes of pipes. Many
robots using flexibility of snake kind body has been proposed
in literature [49], [50]. The snake type robots are designed
by serial interconnection of many identical modules on both
sides with rotational joints. Robot can move horizontally much
like normal wheel based motion. Whereas, vertical motion is
achieved by using flexibility of pushing interconnected joints
against the two opposing side of the pipe at the same time,
while moving upward by forward motion of wheels [50]. Since,
snake-like robots use a number of active joints or modules;
thus, their development cost is expensive and they need more
energy for operation [19].
4) Detection technology: These in-pipe robots are equipped
with various sensory devices each related to specific kind of
job. Visual cameras such as CCD [9], [16], [21], [24], [28],
[29], [31], [41], [43], [45]-[47], [63], [65], [67], micro CCD
[14], [65], CMOS [48] and micro CMOS [71] cameras are
used for the purpose of navigation and inspection. CMOS
cameras require lesser components than CCD, which makes
them comparatively more energy efficient and cheaper than
CCD. Since, CCD cameras generally tend to have higher
resolution than CMOS, therefore choice of camera requires
trade-off between cost and clarity of image. Most of the
commercially available CCD cameras are very big and cannot
be directly installed on the micro-robots. Therefore, [14], [65]
have developed their own specific micro CCD cameras suitable
for inspection of small diameter pipes. Micro CCD camera
developed in [14] carries 41K color pixels and with this
resolution it can locate micro cracks of 25/1 in the internal
surface of the pipe.
One of the major problems for the pipes in oil and gas
1155
industry is corrosion due to unwanted electro-chemical reac­
tions. Role of NDT becomes critical to detect early stages
of corrosion so that corrective measures can be taken before
severe damage takes place. Early stages of corrosion are not
directly visible or detectable by ordinary surface measurement
techniques. However, early detection of corrosion is possible
by estimation of shirking pipe wall thickness and structural
discontinuities. At present there are serval advance techniques
available for corrosion detection such as X-Ray, ultrasonic
[38], [44], [72]-[78], Eddy current [58], [60], [63], [65], [79]­
[81],and magnetic flux leakage (MFL) [72], [82]-[87]. X-ray
based detection techniques enjoy edge over other NDT of its
being capable of pictorial representation. There are many other
advantages of X-ray NDT such as ability to identify material,
estimating material density, and capable of inspecting almost
all kinds of materials, but suffers from requirement of skilled
analyzer, expensive, inability to detect closed cracks and above
of all safety concerns related to its operation [88].
When magnetic field is applied to the internal wall of the
pipe uneven surface of corrosion affected wall distorts the
resulting magnetic field. These distortions in magnetic field are
measured by magnetic sensors but overall measurement result
is only qualitative in nature. This magnetic flux leakage (MFL)
technique is only suitable for small pipes, and sometimes when
pipe materials have impurities results of MFL are spurious in
nature [78]. There are two kinds of MLF techniques firstly
circumferential and secondly axial. Circumferential MLF is
more popular and effective than axial one [85]. MLF technique
is sensitive to pipe material under inspection whereas ultra­
sonic is free from this flaw and more accurate in predictions
[84]. In ultrasonic detection method, high frequency acoustic
waves are transmitted from transducers, which are reflected
by internal and external surfaces of the pipe. Calculations
over reflected and refracted-reflected waves allows estimation
of external and internal corrosion [38]. Ultrasonic detection
technique has many advantages such as high penetration depth,
high accuracy, high sensitivity, rapid testing, portable, safe and
finally it can test all kinds of materials and their properties, but
suffer from expensive training for expert operator, necessity of
contact of transducer with surface of material and inability to
detect crack along the line of wave travel [88].
Quantitative variation of impendence probe of coil due to
eddy current on pipe surface leads to detection of crack in
the pipe [89]. Remote field eddy current (RFEC) based NDT
is another variation of above mentioned conventional eddy
current testing (ECT) technique [9], [90], [91]. Most of the
corrosion detection techniques fails at very high temperature,
such as 175°C inside deeper core of the earth, So [92] has
proposed a new DC electromagnetic induction using ECT
method. ECT techniques are sensitive to large number of
parameters related to magnetic conductivity, permeability, and
geometry. It has many other advantages such as wider tem­
perature range for operation, smaller sizes for probes to be
utilized for smaller diameter pipes, light weight and portable
to be installed on micro robots, and relatively lower in cost,
but suffer from liftoff effect and its inability to be used for
non-metal pipes [88]. Ultrasonic NDT is more sensitive and
has better spatial resolution than ECT, whereas later is more
suitable for inspection of multilayered structures [93], [94].
Apart from defect inspection, IPIRs are equipped with many
other kind of sensors for different purposes, such as gravita­
tional sensor [29], temperature sensor, humidity sensors and
tactile sensors [42], [53], [95] to successfully navigate through
geometries like elbow and branch. Tactile sensors detect these
geometries of the pipes by the virtue of estimating the forces
upon contact with the hard surfaces [42]. Researchers in [96]
have used laser projection technique to identify the special
geometries of the pipe which helps them in localization of the
autonomous robot and in [97] laser sensors are utilized for the
pose estimation of robot inside the pipe.
5) Control mechanism: Most of the IPIRs are controlled
and powered by tethered cable or umbilical cord connected
between operator system and in-pipe robots [11]. Tethered
cables are composed of power cable and optical fiber wires
for the purpose of video communication and data transmission
[28]. These tethered cables serve many purposes such as [8]:
• Supplying power to the various devices installed on the
robot such as locomotive motors, video cameras, lighting,
defect detection and other kinds of sensors, in the form
of ACIDC, pneumatic or hydraulic power.
• Control signals to navigation (wheels and legs), manip­
ulation (manipulators installed on robots for the purpose
of welding, cutting and drilling) and inspection mecha­
nisms (defect detection sensors and pan, tilt and zoom of
camera) of the robot.
• Used as a safety rope to pull out the robot from pipe
or inspection site in situation of accidental power loss or
completion of inspection task [98].
The biggest drawback of using tethered cable with IPIR lies
in continuously increasing friction force with increasingly
traveled distance by robot inside the pipe [44], [46], [98]. In
such situations slip-less travel of IPIRs require more and more
traction force [11], [46] with higher and higher demand of ki­
netic energy. All round 360 degree inspection in circular pipes
lead to twisting of tether cable which may at the end damage
the cable itself [99]. Along with all these limitations, total
distance travelled by in-pipe robots are physically restricted
with the usage of tether cable [44], [59], [98].
Freedom from inconvenient tether cable is the biggest
impetus for using wireless technology for inspection robots.
There have been various un-tethered and wireless inspection
robots proposed in literature to overcome problems related to
conventionally tether cable controlled inspection robots [10],
[12], [16], [27], [36], [37], [44], [63], [65], [100]-[102]. Tether
less robots can be picked up from their exit point itself in
the pipe rather than coming back to the base point for their
collection. All the wireless inspection robots carry, pack of
rechargeable batteries for on-board power supply and commu­
nication system with higher bandwidth for data transmission
[98]. For micro robots, where space is already a constraint
1156
and usage of heavy inspection devices such as camera [99]
and thick hard wire will further limit its mobility inside the
pipe [12], [16]. Therefore, [63], [65], [99] have proposed micro
robots with compact and wireless energy supply, communi­
cation, and navigation mechanism. The biggest drawback of
wireless technology comes from their inability to penetrate
metallic pipes due to high electrical conductivity of materials
such as steel [103]. To make wireless technology even to work
for metallic pipelines, problem of electromagnetic shielding
has to be solved first. And for this purpose [36] has proposed
an emitter with extremely low frequency of Electromagnetic
wave, which can pass through metallic wall as well.
Overall control architecture of the inspection robots highly
depends on their degrees of autonomy and it can be of three
kinds such as manually operated, semi-autonomous and fully­
autonomous [104], [105]. Visual feedback from the remote
location to the operator and in return command signal from the
operator to the machine completes the loop in manual remote
control process [106]. Sensors and manipulators installed on
remote device (or site) works as eyes, ears and hands of
operator at operation site. This kind of automation requires
well trained person, who has to manually operate every single
step of the process such as safe navigation of the remote
device, switch-on and off of the inspection sensors, and manip­
ulation operation etc. [106], [107]. Mostly all the commercially
available inspection robots belong to this category [100]. In
semi-autonomous robots, in principal operator has to define
only initial and final conditions of the operations. Sensory
data received by robot is interpreted either locally by processor
installed on the robot or by computer at operator side [100].
Overall in this process, role of the operator is greatly reduced
by inclusion of intelligent navigation and collision avoidance
techniques [98]. In fully automated operations, robotic devices
can be preprogrammed for complete operation and there is
no need of human interventions at all especially during the
operation [101], [106]. Given, the sensitive nature of products
and environments in oil and gas industry, it requires continuous
human supervision, therefore it still prefers semi-autonomous
human controlled robots such as [108]-[111].
There are some fully autonomous IPIRs from other indus­
tries to inspire oil and gas industry. Such as KANTARO [112]
and MAKRO [101] are two fully-autonomous, module based,
un-tethered and self-steering IPIRs designed for inspection of
sewer pipes. But these IPIR are only suitable for navigation
in straight pipelines or at-max in curved pipe. These IPIRs
suffer from wheel slip error and are unable to climb in vertical
sections of pipelines. [57] has presented fully autonomous
IPIR, named FAMP ER, with excellent mobility, by which it
can navigate through any spatial conditions of the pipeline
(horizontal and vertical both) having complex geometries (T­
branches, Y-branches, and L-joints) using its caterpillars and
extendable link system. The biggest push for development
of completely independent IPIR stems from the fact that
general wireless communication is not possible for most of the
metallic pipes and wired communication is severely limiting
the mobility and navigation of robot inside the pipe. With these
reasons in mind [96] has proposed autonomous navigation
inside pipelines with the help of laser based landmark detection
technique. For autonomous inspection robots, all the inspection
data has to be stored locally which can be analyzed later
on after exit of robot from the pipeline. Apart from local
data storage, autonomous robots must possess some local
intelligence as well for the purpose of navigation [33] and
defect detection [103]. For example, [44] contains crawler unit,
drive unit, controller unit, battery unit and ultrasonic inspect
unit, all installed locally on the robot itself. In this IPIR,
drive control system receives motion command from central
controller via CAN bus, with no need of human operator.
Navigation control, specifically steering through elbow and
branches, is one of the most important control aspect of all the
IPIR described in literature. For example [24] has proposed
a sophisticated control algorithm for steering of IPIR from
various complex geometries of pipe based on modulation of
wheel speeds. In [52], researchers have developed a kinematic
motion control strategy for passive-joint active-wheel snake
robot, to coordinate between different modules for higher mo­
bility and lower demand of traction force. In [113], researchers
have proposed a new IPIR, called National Taiwan University
(NTU) Navigator, which have a stable and smooth fuzzy
steering controller for operating inside the pipes of varying
diameters. Most of the IPIR research focuses on the drive
control mechanism but ignore global planning for automatic
yet comprehensive inspection of complex pipelines. Therefore,
[106] has presented an efficient 3-D guarding algorithm that
can cover a given complicated environment using as few as
possible points.
B. Tank inspection
Huge metallic tanks are used for storing the petro-chemical
products both at offshore and onshore production plants.
Continuous storage of crude petroleum products inside the
metallic tanks generates many corrosive by-products such as
iron sulfide and hydrogen sulphide. These tanks have many
welded joints and these are prone to leakage due to corrosion
and wear. Bubbling H2S does more damage to the roof than
the bottom of the tank. Bottom of the tank is mainly damaged
by collection of large quantities of sludge material containing
heterotrophic microorganisms. Although bottom also contains
many corrosion pits created due to internal reactions of petro­
products [114]. Since, humanly inspection of these tanks, is
dangerous due to presence of H2S and such other gases,
requires completely emptying the tank and stopping all the
production for few weeks [115], hence, this process is lengthy,
expensive and hazardous from safety point of view. Automated
inspection, while tanks are full, with continued operation of the
plant is the motivation for research for TIRs.
Main criteria of categorizing the TIR, is based on the
principle of climbing the tank under inspection [116]. There are
two broad categories of climbing techniques, firstly based on
adhesion mechanism and secondly on the locomotion principle.
The most common adhesion mechanisms are magnetism [9],
1157
[81], [117]-[126], vacuum suction [127]-[129], specific attach­
ment devices such as rails [130] or pegs and grippers/clamps
[131]. The locomotion category can be further divided in four
sub-groups [123], such as wheels [9], [81], [117]-[120], tracks
[128], legs [121], [132] and actuator [123] based devices.
There are some outstanding tank inspection robots such as
Neptune, Maverick and Scavenger. Neptune is a mobile robot
designed by Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University
[133]. This robot aims for remote inspection of above-ground
tanks, while they are filled with petroleum products. Neptune
is equipped with vehicle crawler to move up and inside the
tank, ultrasonic sensors for detecting leakage, HD cameras for
visual feedback and acoustic sensors for position locationing
inside the tank etc. Neptune provides the visual records of
each welded joint and thickness-contour maps for the floor
of the tank using ultrasonic thickness measurement sensors
[133]. Since, most of the TIRs carry almost similar kinds of
equipment for the purpose of inspection as IPIRs but their main
differences come from climbing technologies. Therefore, in
broader sense discussions related to detection technologies and
control mechanisms described in Sections II-A.4 and II-A.5 are
very well applicable to the robots of TIR categories as well.
There are also some novel control mechanisms proposed for
TIRs as in [134], [135] and [136]. [134] has presented a fuzzy
CMAC algorithm along with neural networks to establish the
tracking control system for improving the performance of the
robot navigation. In [135] a novel client/server architecture
has been proposed for autonomous operation of the inspection
robot. Here client program is run on the inspection root locally
which is related to safe climbing and navigation of robot,
whereas server program is run on operator side at control
room. At server side, programs are concerned with capturing
the visual data, detection of leakage and some manipulation
work. Fuel tanks installed on the ship have thin metallic walls
so normally used heavy climbing robot cannot be used due to
tendency of deformation of surface. A novel architecture called
mother/child has been proposed in [137], to deal with such
a situation. Where mother robot is normal a heavy climbing
robot with high mobility used for climbing through strong track
available on the tank. And child robot, which is very light in
weight, carries only required detectors for inspection. Most of
these robots are at max semi-autonomous in nature but [136]
presents fully autonomous TIR with wireless control.
III. C ONCLUSION
This paper summarizes the state of art robotic solutions
available for in-pipe inspection and tank inspection robots at
onshore facilities of oil and gas industry. This paper has also
summarized various steering mechanisms, propulsion tech­
nologies, defect-detection techniques and control mechanisms
for these inspection robots. Most of the commercially available
robots, used for pipe inspection and tank inspection, are re­
motely operated machines with very little autonomy. But trends
of successful implementation of reliable semi-autonomous
and teleoperated robots are excellent choices as near future
solutions. Development of few completely autonomous robots,
from other fields such as water pipe inspection, is very encour­
aging for future fully automated robots for oil and gas plants.
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