Key Trends in Industrial Imaging and Remote Visual Inspection
Introduction
Digitalization and automation are fundamentally transforming industrial manufacturing and asset maintenance across the globe. As products grow in complexity, new materials emerge, and cost pressures intensify, the importance of these technologies escalates.
Technological advancements in the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and big data are poised to redefine future industrial operations. These innovations are already exerting a profound influence on quality control and maintenance inspections. The latest trends in non-destructive testing (NDT) are closely linked to the broader developments in global manufacturing. Central to these trends are assistance, automation, and integration.
Assistance
Inspectors in sectors with large assets, such as chemical plants, power plants, aircraft, oil platforms, and wind farms, face significant challenges in ensuring comprehensive risk assessments of all critical components. Simultaneously, manufacturers and operators are under pressure to boost production volumes while minimizing downtime. These demands necessitate a greater number of inspections, completed more rapidly, without compromising on accuracy or the insights provided by the assessments.
Assistance systems offer valuable support. The NDT sector is advancing Assisted Defect Recognition (ADR) software, designed to address two key needs:
- Swiftly directing inspectors' attention to flaws detected in images or scans of the object under review.
- Providing real-time assistance for quality analysis and go/no-go decisions at the inspection site, ensuring immediate results and the safe operation of assets.
These solutions exemplify augmented intelligence, where the inspector remains in full control, but receives enhanced information highlighting potential areas of concern. Crucially, this information must be available before the technology is deployed, such as before an aircraft takes off.
Automation
A key trend is the reduction of human risk in inspections. Advanced robotics, combined with visual or ultrasound technology, enable the deployment of robotic crawlers into boilers, storage tanks containing toxic materials, or other hard-to-reach areas. These robots perform cleaning and inspections using remotely controlled NDT technology, thereby minimizing health risks for inspectors, reducing preparatory downtime, and cutting costs.
In both field and production inspections, adhering to standardized or predefined processes further mitigates the risk of human error. Automated standard procedures and menu-guided inspections save inspectors time and enhance accuracy. For example, Waygate Technologies, in collaboration with Rolls Royce, developed the Intelligent Borescope for turbine blade inspections. This innovation reduced the inspection time for a gas turbine or jet engine from six hours to just 30 minutes. Despite such remarkable advancements, the industry is only beginning to explore the full potential of automation.
Integration
The data gathered through non-destructive testing harbors vast, untapped potential. As in other sectors dealing with big data, integration is paramount. In industrial inspections, relevant data spans the entire lifecycle of an asset, necessitating the integration of information from suppliers, manufacturers, end customers, asset owners, and service providers. While this integration was once a manual task performed on a laptop, it now occurs entirely in the cloud.
Waygate Technologies is increasingly integrating third-party information from clients in traditionally insular industries such as oil and gas, aviation, and energy into an inspection software platform. The potential efficiencies and asset insights gained from this integration can significantly enhance the design of the next generation of assets, far outweighing the reluctance to share data.
The Imperative of Timeliness
The strategic combination of assistance, automation, and integration is enabling NDT leaders like Waygate Technologies to collaborate with clients in revolutionizing industries. By combining ADR and other assistance systems with automation and robotics to map and oversee 3D models of assets, inspections are transformed from a necessary expense for quality control into a value-generating tool that maximizes efficiency and enhances product design.
As the importance of reliability, cost-effectiveness, and sustainability continues to grow, forward-thinking inspection and maintenance methodologies will take center stage.