A review on the prospects of mobile manipulators for smart maintenance of railway track

Inspection and repair interventions play vital roles in the asset management of railways. Autonomous mobile manipulators possess considerable potential to replace humans in many hazardous railway track maintenance tasks with high efficiency. This paper investigates the prospects of the use of mobile manipulators in track maintenance tasks. The current state of railway track inspection and repair technologies is initially reviewed, revealing that very few mobile manipulators are in the railways. Of note, the technologies are analytically scrutinized to ascertain advantages, unique capabilities, and potential use in the deployment of mobile manipulators for inspection and repair tasks across various industries. Most mobile manipulators in maintenance use ground robots, while other applications use aerial, underwater, or space robots. Power transmission lines, the nuclear industry, and space are the most extensive application areas. Clearly, the railways infrastructure managers can benefit from the adaptation of best practices from these diversified designs and their broad deployment, leading to enhanced human safety and optimized asset digitalization. A case study is presented to show the potential use of mobile manipulators in railway track maintenance tasks. Moreover, the benefits of the mobile manipulator are discussed based on previous research. Finally, challenges and requirements are reviewed to provide insights into future research

NASA SBIR abstracts of 1990 phase 1 projects

The research objectives of the 280 projects placed under contract in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) 1990 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase 1 program are described. The basic document consists of edited, non-proprietary abstracts of the winning proposals submitted by small businesses in response to NASA's 1990 SBIR Phase 1 Program Solicitation. The abstracts are presented under the 15 technical topics within which Phase 1 proposals were solicited. Each project was assigned a sequential identifying number from 001 to 280, in order of its appearance in the body of the report. The document also includes Appendixes to provide additional information about the SBIR program and permit cross-reference in the 1990 Phase 1 projects by company name, location by state, principal investigator, NASA field center responsible for management of each project, and NASA contract number

Wall Climbing And Pipe Crawler Robots For Nozzle Weld Inspection Inside Nuclear Pressure Vessels

This paper describes the design and development of a NDT robotic solution to test circumferential welds located inside pipe nozzles at a distance of 700mm from the inside walls of nuclear pressure vessels. These welds are currently inspected using very large robot arms that are taken into the containment area and assembled. This is a time consuming operation that exposes operators to radiation. A preferred solution is to develop a light weight and compact robot that can be carried into the containment area and inserted into a pressure vessel using an overhead crane. The crane is then removed and used for other tasks. The robot must then be operated to accomplish the weld inspection task in all the pipe nozzles located in the pressure vessel

Index to 1984 NASA Tech Briefs, volume 9, numbers 1-4

Short announcements of new technology derived from the R&D activities of NASA are presented. These briefs emphasize information considered likely to be transferrable across industrial, regional, or disciplinary lines and are issued to encourage commercial application. This index for 1984 Tech B Briefs contains abstracts and four indexes: subject, personal author, originating center, and Tech Brief Number. The following areas are covered: electronic components and circuits, electronic systems, physical sciences, materials, life sciences, mechanics, machinery, fabrication technology, and mathematics and information sciences

Smart maintenance and inspection of linear assets: An Industry 4.0 approach

Linear assets have linear properties, for instance, similar underlying geometry and characteristics, over a distance. They show specific patterns of continuous inherent deteriorations and failures. Therefore, remedial inspection and maintenance actions will be similar along the length of a linear asset, but because as the asset is distributed over a large area, the execution costs are greater. Autonomous robots, for instance, unmanned aerial vehicles, pipe inspection gauges, and remotely operated vehicles, are used in different industrial settings in an ad-hoc manner for inspection and maintenance. Autonomous robots can be programmed for repetitive and specific tasks; this is useful for the inspection and maintenance of linear assets. This paper reviews the challenges of maintaining the linear assets, focusing on inspections. It also provides a conceptual framework for the use of autonomous inspection and maintenance practices for linear assets to reduce maintenance costs, human involvement, etc., whilst improving the availability of linear assets by effective use of autonomous robots and data from different sources

Peer Review Report 2006

This document is reporting findings from the research peer reviews held February 7-9, 2006 for PHMSA’s Pipeline Safety Research and Development Program. The findings and recommendations in this report derive from the scoring and comments collected from the peer review panelists. Department of Transportation (DOT) Operating Agencies (OA) are required to begin a systematic process for peer review planning for all influential and highly influential information that the OA plans to disseminate in the “foreseeable” future. Through the Information Quality Act, Congress directed Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to “provide policy and procedural guidance to Federal agencies for ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information, (including statistical information) disseminated by Federal agencies.” A resulting OMB Bulletin entitled, “Final Information Quality Bulletin for Peer Review” was issued prescribing required procedures for Federal programs. The Office of the Secretary of Transportation (OST) produced procedures governing modal implementation of this OMB Bulletin. These procedures as well as the OMB Bulletin serve as the basis and justification for the PHMSA Pipeline Safety R&D Program peer reviews. Peer reviews are intended to uncover any technical problems or unsolved issues in a scientific work product through the use of technically competent and independent (objective) experts. Peer review of a major scientific work product that will have the imprimatur of the Federal Government needs to be incorporated into the upfront planning of any action based in the work product. This includes obtaining the proper resources commitments (reviewers and funds) then establishing realistic schedules

Peer Review Report 2006

This document is reporting findings from the research peer reviews held February 7-9, 2006 for PHMSA’s Pipeline Safety Research and Development Program. The findings and recommendations in this report derive from the scoring and comments collected from the peer review panelists. Department of Transportation (DOT) Operating Agencies (OA) are required to begin a systematic process for peer review planning for all influential and highly influential information that the OA plans to disseminate in the “foreseeable” future. Through the Information Quality Act, Congress directed Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to “provide policy and procedural guidance to Federal agencies for ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information, (including statistical information) disseminated by Federal agencies.” A resulting OMB Bulletin entitled, “Final Information Quality Bulletin for Peer Review” was issued prescribing required procedures for Federal programs. The Office of the Secretary of Transportation (OST) produced procedures governing modal implementation of this OMB Bulletin. These procedures as well as the OMB Bulletin serve as the basis and justification for the PHMSA Pipeline Safety R&D Program peer reviews. Peer reviews are intended to uncover any technical problems or unsolved issues in a scientific work product through the use of technically competent and independent (objective) experts. Peer review of a major scientific work product that will have the imprimatur of the Federal Government needs to be incorporated into the upfront planning of any action based in the work product. This includes obtaining the proper resources commitments (reviewers and funds) then establishing realistic schedules

Index to 1981 NASA Tech Briefs, volume 6, numbers 1-4

Short announcements of new technology derived from the R&D activities of NASA are presented. These briefs emphasize information considered likely to be transferrable across industrial, regional, or disciplinary lines and are issued to encourage commercial application. This index for 1981 Tech Briefs contains abstracts and four indexes: subject, personal author, originating center, and Tech Brief Number. The following areas are covered: electronic components and circuits, electronic systems, physical sciences, materials, life sciences, mechanics, machinery, fabrication technology, and mathematics and information sciences

Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on NDE in Relation to Structural Integrity for Nuclear and Pressurized Components

This conference, the tenth in a series on NDE in relation to structural integrity for nuclear and pressurized components, was held from 1st October to 3 October 2013, in Cannes, France. The scientific programme was co-produced by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, Institute for Energy and Transport (EC-JRC/IET). The Conference has been coordinated by the Confédération Française pour les Essais Non Destructifs (COFREND). The first conference, under the sole responsibility of EC-JRC was held in Amsterdam, 20-22 October 1998. The second conference was locally organized by the EPRI NDE Center in New Orleans, 24-26 May 2000, the third one by Tecnatom in Seville, 14-16 November 2001, the fourth one by the British Institute of Non-Destructive Testing in London, 6-8 December 2004, the fifth by EPRI in San Diego, 10-12 May 2006, the sixth by Marovisz in Budapest, 8-10 October 2007, the seventh by the University of Tokyo and JAPEIC in Yokohama, the eight by DGZfP, 29 September to 1st October 2010, the ninth by Epri NDE Center, 22-24 May 2012 in Seattle. The theme of this conference series is to provide the link between the information originated by NDE and the use made of this information in assessing structural integrity. In this context, there is often a need to determine NDE performance against structural integrity requirements through a process of qualification or performance demonstration. There is also a need to develop NDE to address shortcomings revealed by such performance demonstration or otherwise. Finally, the links between NDE and structural integrity require strengthening in many areas so that NDE is focussed on the components at greatest risk and provides the precise information required for assessment of integrity. These were the issues addressed by the papers selected for the conference.JRC.F.5-Nuclear Reactor Safety Assessmen