Industrial plants are a vital and common asset of modern society
in a various number of ways. Safety of large industrial complexes
that handle hazardous chemical materials is of utter importance to
prevent harm to employees, general population, our natural environment
and valuable infrastructure. Therefore, beside the plant owner’s
own financial interest to guarantee faultless and safe operation,
legal regulations have to be adhered due to strong public interest
as well. An important measure to ensure safety is the implementation
of regular inspection tours by maintenance personnel, who examine
the often widely-stretched process infrastructure on foot and locally
search for signs of beginning leakage. The Research Project RoboGasInspector
was started to develop new means of aiding with the fulfillment of
this essential task. This article gives an insight into this ongoing
research project, where autonomous mobile robotics is combined with
laser-based remote gas detection technology in order to create a
proof-of-concept inspection system prototype, which can relieve humans
of this monotonous and highly repetitive work.
