At present, in the field of industrial production, the traditional manual inspection has many problems, such as low efficiency, large amount of labor, insufficient testing workers, poor testing environment and so on. Both the safety and efficiency of testing need to be improved. With the development and maturity of artificial intelligence technology, as well as the popularization of the Internet of Things, cloud computing and 5G technology, intelligent detection robots have gradually become one of the important means of industrial detection, and are widely used in various fields.
Widely used in various industries
Inspection robot is used in the industrial production process of product quality inspection link, as well as the product use process of quality inspection link robot. With the continuous progress of science and technology, the level of automation and intelligence of all kinds of equipment continues to improve. Compared with the traditional detection equipment, the detection robot can automatically perceive, identify, analyze and judge the various situations in the process of product production and use by using artificial intelligence technology, human-computer interaction technology, etc., to help the staff make decisions, or directly solve the problems.
In January this year, 17 departments including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Ministry of Education issued the Implementation Plan for the Application of "Robot Plus", proposing to deepen the application of "robot Plus" in key areas to help intelligent construction. Develop robot products such as infrastructure construction, inspection, operation, maintenance and emergency response, and promote enterprises to break through key technologies such as movement, perception and operation in complex environments.
In Chongqing, Suzhou and other places, intelligent inspection robot dogs carry out inspection on power equipment and substations in cable tunnels through its own infrared thermometer, gas monitoring system and inspection system. In order to ensure the "zero error and zero fault" operation of high-speed railway, the intelligent detection robot of the EMU uses the image algorithm integrating deep learning and feature recognition, and adopts machine vision and other technologies to carry out automatic detection of the EMU. Because it works under the car and is not restricted by the power supply of the overhead contact line, the efficiency of the machine inspection is more than 2.5 times that of the human inspection efficiency... With the intelligent transformation of all walks of life, intelligent detection robots gradually begin to appear in the fields of electricity, transportation, medical care, energy and so on.
It is reported that the application of intelligent detection robot technology and products has been relatively mature in factories, hospitals and other working environments where the task is more clear or has been streamlined. However, the theoretical research and practical application of intelligent detection robots are still in the initial stage in the field with specific functional design requirements or complex working environment.
Xing Guoliang, a professor of information engineering at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said that due to the diversity and complexity of different industries and different detection tasks, there is no universal fixed form of intelligent detection robots, but with the continuous innovation and development of related technologies, "we will soon see highly customizable, modular detection robot solutions."
Human-machine collaboration is more efficient
Traditional infrastructure inspection and maintenance, such as the overhaul of high-voltage wires at high altitude, depends on manual work, which has the problems of large amount of work, difficulty and high risk. Xing Guoliang believes that it is becoming a development trend for infrastructure operation and maintenance to use intelligent detection robots instead of traditional manpower for infrastructure inspection.
Will the rapid development of intelligent detection robots completely replace human work? In fact, human beings have irreplaceable advantages in terms of proficiency, flexibility and multi-task organization and management in the face of different tasks. Intelligent detection robots are suitable for the execution of more routine and time-consuming work tasks in a more dangerous environment. More efficient testing should be done by human-machine collaboration, Xing said. At present, man-machine cooperative operation mode is being practiced and applied continuously in the actual detection work.
According to the 2022 China Intelligent Robot Industry Research Report released by Shanghai iResearch Market Consulting Co., LTD., the emergence of collaborative robots has made it possible for robots and humans to share working Spaces, further advancing man-machine collaboration. Security is the premise of man-machine cooperation, and intelligent control is the guarantee of security. The addition of intelligent technology will continuously promote the evolution of man-machine cooperation mode. In the future, it is expected to realize man-machine deep joint operation while taking into account cost, product, performance and other factors.
Industry insiders believe smarter detection robot applications, backed by innovations such as sensors and machine learning, will help people overcome challenges such as troubleshooting infrastructure. The innovation and development of these technologies will greatly improve the autonomy of intelligent detection robots and the overall safety of detection work.
Especially in some more urgent detection tasks, intelligent detection robots can help people to detect a wider area in a shorter time. For example, the application of sensor fusion technology, intelligent detection robot can splice electromagnetic signals of different wavelengths together to provide more comprehensive data information detected by different signals; The backscattering technology of radio waves enables the intelligent detection robot to complete the detection task even when it is blocked by objects.
"In some highly specialized industries that rely more on equipment, such as metal fatigue detection, intelligent inspection robots can be more accurate, more comprehensive and more efficient," Xing said.