<p>Contact inspections of large industrial assets are very labour intensive and require human operators to access difficult to reach locations that can also be hazardous. There is a desire to remove vulnerable personnel from these hazardous environments and robotic solutions are an attractive way of doing this. For non-contact inspections the use of camera systems and drones has rapidly established itself as a useful tool for surveying industrial assets. The next frontier is the delivery of contact inspection technology so that difficult to reach locations can be easily accessed. A key requirement for delivery from drone based or field robots is that light weight systems that do not require surface preparations can be used. Over the last 5 years, as part of the UK based ORCA robotics hub, the authors have researched and developed EMAT technology that can be easily integrated into robotic systems including drones. EMATs are particularly useful for these applications as they can operate through thin coating layers, and their coils can be configured differently so that multiple inspection modes can be used. This talk will give an overview of the different inspections that can be performed with the system that has been researched and developed, starting with standard thickness testing modes but also exploring the potential for non-standard applications. &nbsp;</p>

Light Weight Emat System for Robotic Inspections in the Field

Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/qnde/QNDE2021/volume/85529

ASME 2021 48th Annual Review of Progress in Quantitative Nondestructive Evaluation (QNDE2021)

Supporting the need among researchers worldwide for additional online and multimedia content, ASME now offers the ASME Conference Video Collection. This platform will collect and provide long-term access to conference presentation videos, encompassing all technology areas within ASME's technical conference and events program. About 30,000-40,000 engineers across all mechanical engineering and related disciplines participate in ASME conferences each year. This includes authors of approximately 6,000 to 8,000 technical papers published by ASME, the majority of whom also submit video presentations for our virtual conferences. The video collection will be available as an add-on to existing product packages or as a separate subscription.