Inspection of confined areas
Some areas that need to be inspected are very narrow and small, which makes it difficult to perform an inspection. Especially in areas with multiple steel beams and steel cables it is hard to reach all positions for a human in order to conduct inspection tasks. In these cases, a specifically designed micro UAV will be used which will fit in even small gaps and has its own illumination to take high-resolution images. In addition to the stated issues under the description of use case 3, micro UAVs must be mechanically protected against collision with objects. In ROBOINSPECT, such small and robust drone types will be investigated. Areas of machines and facilities that currently are not able to be inspected by personnel or only by tediously and lengthy dismounting of surrounding parts will be accessible by the novel micro drone. Moreover, the high risk of injury in confined areas is massively reduced by substituting personnel with this intelligent robotic inspection tool. Due to faster deployment, downtimes are also diminished.