The SIMAR project, coordinated by CATEC, concludes successfully

Chevron Oronite’s industrial facilities in France have hosted the tests and trials for the final validation phase of the SIMAR project (Safe Inspection and Maintenance supporting workers with modular robots, Artificial intelligence, and augmented Reality), an initiative coordinated by CATEC with the aim of developing an advanced system for the inspection and maintenance of large infrastructures, especially in industrial environments such as the Oil & Gas sector. Specifically, this project has focused on improving the safety, efficiency and accuracy of industrial inspections in this field by integrating aerial robotic platforms, non-destructive testing (NDT) techniques and digital tools, reducing the need for human operators to access dangerous or difficult-to-reach areas.

The final tests, carried out in July, were completed with great success, demonstrating the effectiveness of the system in a real operating environment and achieving, for the first time in the world, the integration and operation of an X-ray system on board a UAV. Thus, comprehensive inspections were carried out using pulsed eddy current (PEC), X-ray and visual methods through the SIMAR system. The platform proved to be fully effective in deploying and recovering aerial robots in high-risk areas, eliminating the need for human access. In addition, thanks to augmented reality and artificial intelligence, the work of inspectors was facilitated by providing them with access to crucial information in real time and streamlining the assessment of asset condition.

In short, thanks to the technology developed at SIMAR, a new type of aerial inspection robot with advanced navigation capabilities has been implemented. It can land and work safely in complex and congested pipelines and locations, and deploy lightweight, wireless tracks to perform comprehensive inspections of isolated industrial pipelines.

The SIMAR project has been developed in partnership with Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece), Quaseet, Chevron Oronite, Vertical Engineering Solutions, the University of Seville and BASF. In addition to coordinating the project and being responsible for achieving the objectives from a technical and administrative point of view, CATEC has also led the specifications of the system requirements and the development of the robotic crawler platforms with the integrated X-ray and PEC system.

It has also contributed to other technical work packages, particularly in specifying the ground control station (GCS) for the SIMAR robot and integrating the developed systems into the system. Finally, it has participated in other work packages on the exploitation, communication and dissemination of the project and on the social, ethical and legal (SoEL) issues associated with the initiative.

Thanks to the joint work of all the project partners, great progress has been made in the digitisation and safety of industrial inspection, responding to the three main challenges set out in the project: