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to do extensive testing to have comfort crophone for acoustic measurements Wif, 4G LTE but doesn’t need continu- and believe the robot can do the job. The and LED spotlight. The sensor pack can ous connectivity because of the sensors majority of developers are not from an oil be extended with up to 16kg addition- and intelligence onboard. In 2018, an and gas background, they don’t under- al payload. With its Lidar it can track ANYmal was taken offshore the Neth- stand it and the harsh environment, so structural changes in the environment. erlands for a one-week trial aboard an there are going to be gaps and there are ANYmal says it can connect though offshore work transformer platform. some lessons learned for developers when they are on site.”

Even when high reliability is demon- strated, “To go from there to unmanned operations is another order of magni- tude,” says Fallon. And then there’s also being able to show that these machines add value. “Operators need to see value in using these machines because deploy- ment of new technologies always bear risks,” says Biegl. “Like Total and Equi- nor, you need to have a vision as an op- erator to see this as the future and dive into it and engage fnancially. These ma- chines are complex and you need skin in the game. Adoption also needs edu- cation within these corporations, espe- cially for the people who will work with these robots.”

Fact file

Taurob Inspector is now commer- cialized and will be manufactured to scale in France and hopefully deployed around the world with partner Diets- man. It’s a tracked vehicle with cameras,

Lidar, smart algorithms to detect a valve or pump gauges to see if they’re operat- ing in the right parameters or to do a general visual inspection of corrosion. It also has microphones so it can get a base frequency of a value and then hear if it’s operating out of that frequency. It will also have thermal imaging in it for gas releases, weeps and seeps.

ANYmal is a quadruped with an open

API based on ROS industry standards to integrate robots and is able to oper- ate for 90 minutes and recharge in 100.

It has various sensors, including Lidar, a visual camera with 20X optical zoom, for images and video at 4k resolution.

It has a thermal camera, ultrasonic mi-

JULY/AUGUST 2021 OFFSHORE ENGINEER 31