Relax, there’s no mechanized apocalypse, just a well-deserved promotion to new responsibilities and tasks. Robots are long-serving veterans in the process industries, but lately they’re diversifying, multiplying and expanding explosively into all kinds of new applications.
During the past few decades, mobile robots inspected flare stacks, power lines and other equipment and processes that were especially difficult for humans to reach. More recently, they’ve taken on new capabilities—or at least new names—and became drones, automatic guided vehicles (AGVs), autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
“We now have drone operations at 95 affiliates, using technology we developed at ExxonMobil’s facility in Baytown, Texas,” said Shankar Nadarajhah, global drone inspection lead at ExxonMobil Technology and Energy. “Personnel working at heights or in hazardous areas initially resisted using drones due to perceived risks about what they could or couldn’t do. Some of those walls have broken down, so we developed our Global Area Visualization Inspection Service (GAVIS) program that uses drones to take quantitative measures, and even do physical work and mitigate risks.”
Nadarajhah was one of four experts who participated in the “Robotics for the Process Industries” panel this week at Yokogawa’s YNOW2024 users conference in Houston.
Wireless, digitalization fuel new roles
Likewise growing out of the inspection field, Connor Crawford, CEO at Pike Robotics, reported that his company recently developed and deployed robots that evaluate floating-roof storage tanks, and are presently seeking ATEX certification, so their robots can work safely in classified environments. “They originally did inspections, but now they’re also managing data and providing other functions and information that operators want to see,” said Crawford.
Penny Chen (pictured), global lead of Yokogawa’s Robotics Task Force, added that she and her colleagues started investigating how robots could be used in the process industries about six years ago. “They’ve already done inspections for a long time, but now robots are benefiting from the emergence of wireless communications. The cloud is also making it easier for them to process and manage data. Plus, they’re more affordable and easier to use,” explained Chen.
“This is the reason Yokogawa started its Oprex Robot Management Core (RMC) program to determine other ways they could be used, such as managing many of the sensors in the field. Users aren’t limited by their creativity and innovation, but they must have a way to adapt robots easily and be able to demonstrate enough return on investment (ROI). We can help because Yokogawa is robot-agnostic, so we can evaluate and apply them to all different kinds of tasks.”
Survivability, logistics and finance
Beyond doing new jobs, Nadarajhah added that more research is needed to help robots cope with and survive in worst case scenarios, such as how to land safely before their battery dies, or how to navigate and work in the rain.
“We don’t build robots, but using drones allows us to spread out our operating costs,” explained Nadarajhah. “We want them to succeed, so we can apply them using a service strategy approach.”
To help users deal with expenses, bills of materials, supplies and guidance, Crawford added that Pike Robotics can lease them to users who don’t want to be responsible for them long-term.
Supplementing, not replacing, people
When asked if the advent of robots will come at the expense of human jobs, the panel unanimously reported that their robots are all doing tasks that none of them can find people to do and would otherwise go undone. “Process industry robots often work in locations where equipment is running, but where there are simply no people,” added Nadarajhah. “Putting up scaffolding in Houston’s heat is also difficult, so there are already robotic, scaffold assembly companies working here. Robots can do many of these dirty, dangerous or boring jobs.”
Gregory Martin, U.S. operations VP at Mitsubishi Nuclear Energy Systems, agreed that robots would be especially useful in remote South America and other rural areas. “Workforce isn’t really a problem in these cases because robots are supplementing operations that can’t find people,” he added. “We recently developed our autonomous EX ROVR robot, and we’re looking at integrating with other software for wider adoption in other industries.”
Chen added that many process-industry owners already can’t find employees, and this situation is only likely to get worse because half of existing process operators are expected to retire in one to five years. “In fact, for young people that don’t want to work in typical process settings, the chance to program and use robots can be an attractive recruiting tool for us,” added Chen. “We believe robotic technologies can enhance the process industries.”
