SIMAR proposes a new type of inspection robot that is composed of an aerial system with advanced navigation capabilities that will allow to safely land on pipes, even if they are located in complex and cluttered locations and deploy and light-weight crawlers that integrate either adapted X-ray or PEC (Pulsed Eddy-Current) sensors to perform complete inspections of insulated pipes. The main purpose of SIMAR resides on keeping the human workers of dangerous industrial plants in a location, where inspection and maintenance activities can be performed in a safe and healthy way. This will be done by applying the MOVE, SUPPORT and UNDERSTAND functionalities, integrated into a unique system, validated in a controlled environment, and finally demonstrated in a real operational industrial facility of the SIMAR end-users. MOVE will be implemented by robots with flying and crawling locomotion, SUPPORT by the application of Augmented Reality, and UNDERSTAND by means of Artificial Intelligence. In order to overcome the above challenge, SIMAR will pursue four objectives: 1. Multipurpose aerial/ground robotic system to keep away workers from dangerous situations for a safe, robust, and trusted inspection. 2.Artificial Intelligence and augmented reality systems to reduce human workload and level of stress. 3.Human-centered robotics inspection system 4.TRL7 validation and demonstration on an operational petrochemical facility taking into account end-users' requirements. SIMAR consortium is formed by 7 high-profile European partners (CATEC, AUTH, QUASSET, CHEVRON, VES, USE and BASF) from 5 EU Member States, which have been carefully selected for their proven experience, as well as their complementarity and transnationality, in order to give the necessary knowledge, expertise, and cutting-edge background to assure the success of the project.

HYFLIERS will develop two prototypes for the first worldwide hybrid aerial/ground robot with a hyper-redundant lightweight robotic articulated arm equipped with an inspection sensor, together with supporting services for efficient and safe inspection in industrial sites. Energy savings will be achieved by minimizing the time of flight and by performing the inspection while attached to the pipe. To ensure accurate positioning, guidance, landing and rolling on constrained surfaces such as pipes, the robot will rely on a control system also integrating environment perception, particularly for landing on the pipes, and aerodynamic control taking into account aerodynamic effects of the pipes. The system will also have multi-media interfaces for teleoperation, automatic collision detection and avoidance; a trajectory planning system that will take into account aerodynamic effects in addition to kinematic and dynamic models; and a mission planning system to optimize the use of the robot in the inspection. The technology results will be validated in the inspection of pipes, which is a very relevant short-term application. HYFLIERS will decrease the cost and risks of current human inspection in production plants, such as oil and gas, where it is estimated that about 50 000 pipe thickness measurement points are needed within a 3 to 5 years interval. HYFLIERS will eliminate the risks of accidental falls and the cost associated to the use of man-lifts, cranes, scaffold or rope access, which is many orders of magnitude larger than the measurement cost by itself. Taking into account that about 60% to 75% of inspection costs in this type of facilities is dedicated to ultrasonic thickness measurements, the project will concentrate on these measurements. The results of the project could be also applied to other industrial scenarios, such as power generation plants.

Current European refineries and civil infrastructures, like tunnels and bridges, are ageing, and therefore gradually become deteriorated, especially taking into consideration the current and future economic situation in Europe where large investments in renewing infrastructures are not foreseen. Then, it is paramount important to increase the efficiency and quality of inspection and maintenance activities in order to keep the necessary safety levels in these ageing infrastructures. To overcome this important challenge, PILOTING proposes the adaptation, integration, and demonstration of robotic solutions, in an integrated platform, which will be tested and evaluated in three large-scale pilots: refineries (Oil&Gas sector), bridges/viaducts and tunnels (Civil/Transport Infrastructure sector) with the involvement of all the actors that conform the full value chain. The developed platform will: demonstrate the application of robotics at scale in the domain of Inspection and Maintenance (I&M), reduce end-user commercial risks on the deployment of robotics in the sector, demonstrate capabilities and improve understanding of robotics uptake value, develop and support the related ecosystem around the piloting I&M operations, as well as, contribute to industrial standards in robotics for I&M. To achieve the above, PILOTING will develop an advanced robotic-based platform that will be deployed in the three industrial scenarios and demonstrate the real value towards the inspection and maintenance community as well as its high level socio-economic impact when applied at scale. PILOTING will establish large-scale pilots in real industrial environments to directly reply to main I&M challenges through the demonstration of: increasing rate of inspection and maintenance tasks, improving coverage and performance, decreasing costs and time of operations, improving inspection quality and increasing safety of operators.