Advanced Electromagnetic Wheel Robot

The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) promotes innovation and robotic deployments in the oil and gas industry to improve quality and safety. This paper discusses a robot in the shape of a wheel, with an electromagnetic conductive outer surface and an inner compartment, able to move horizontally and vertically on ferrous assets in oil and gas plants, without the need of scaffolding and man-lifts, to inspect high elevated assets. This use resulted in reduced operational cost by significantly eliminating scaffolding, reducing manhours, and downtime while improving safety by minimizing man-lifts. This robot has a number of magnetic elements located around the inner chamber of the housing; these elements being coupled to a first end of a power drive included in the robotic device. In addition, the control system in the robot provides on-demand magnetism to overcome 90-degree bends with selective magnetism to move in either direction (forward or backward) from the bend. This robot combines multipurpose technology, such as a magnetic force sensor to detect the magnetic force on the wheel. Additionally, the element could be used as a Magnetic Flux Leakage (MFL) sensor, to detect anomalies and an ultrasonic testing (UT) sensor for thickness measurement. Both sensors controlled by an advanced microprocessor.