The Robot Management Core (RMC) enables improved safety and efficiency in plant operations and maintenance by integrating and managing a variety of mobile robots, which perform tasks that were previously the responsibility of the workforce. RMC also interoperates with Yokogawa's plant control and safety system in operational procedures, which allow the robot to utilize data acquired from the field. This provides an initial step toward autonomous plant operation.
Development Background
At manufacturing facilities in industries such as oil and gas and chemicals, on-site operators perform routine tasks such as equipment inspections. However, covering wide areas is time-consuming and hazardous areas place a heavy safety burden on the operators. In addition, retiring on-site operators and the shift of young people away from the manufacturing site have resulted in a shortage of human resources in plants. Today, there are high expectations for safer and more efficient plant operations and maintenance using robots in place of people to perform routine tasks such as data collection.
With RMC, Yokogawa aims to solve the following issues:
- Reduce safety risks by using robots to perform work in hazardous areas and at heights.
- Support the workforce with robots, enabling operators to perform other tasks.
- Allow robots to reliably perform tasks that exceed human limitations, such as around-the-clock deployment and inspections, in accordance with operational objectives.
Details
Main Functions
RMC is a software platform for integrated management of robots that are deployed in a plant. RMC supports industrial robots that operate on-site. By integrating the software with the Collaborative Information Server (CI Server), RMC promotes the use of robots in plants and contributes to improving the safety of on-site plant work and efficiency in terms of costs and time.
RMC supports the following types of mobile robots:
Boston Dynamics: Spot robots
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.: EX ROVR robots
Integrated Management of Robots
- Management, instruction, and data collection of multiple and heterogeneous types of robots can be performed in a unified manner. Robot-supplied data can be associated with control/safety systems and used for operational purposes.
- Since the dashboard can be displayed on a web browser, dedicated viewer is not required.
- Plant patrol inspections can be performed by autonomous robots through manual and scheduled execution of pre-registered robot missions. In addition, media data collected by the robot during inspection patrols, such as photos and audio, can be confirmed using a web browser.
Relevance to Other Software
Integrating RMC with the CI Server promotes the use of robots in plants and contributes to improving the safety of on-site plant work and the efficiency in terms of costs and time.
- RMC can share the data collected by robots with the CI Server.
- Through integration with the CI Server, the data collected by the robot can be used in various applications
- HMI for robot utilization can be built on the CI Server.
- When the CI Server detects alarms from field devices, the robot can be dispatched to a field location and the real-time field situation can be checked with image data from the robot.
- By integrating RMC with the Plant Image Analyzer (PIA), images of indicators taken by the robot can be converted to digital values. They can also be shared with the CI Server.
An example of a RMC system architecture
System Configuration
RMC supports on-premises and cloud deployment types.
On-premises Configuration:
- When connecting Spot, RMC and Spot are placed on the same network.
- When connecting EX ROVR, the Internet connection environment for RMC is required.
Cloud Configuration:
- When using Spot, it is necessary to connect the robot and RMC via a VPN.
Functional Configuration
RMC is a web application with services and an interface to the robot. It uses a dashboard on a web browser to set up and operate mission (*) schedules related to the robot.
*A mission is a series of tasks to be performed by the robot according to a predefined scenario. (e.g., "go to point A," "take a picture," "return to starting point," etc.)
Web Application Features
- Dashboard page
Check the status of robots registered in RMC, remote monitoring missions to be executed, inspection targets (tags), etc. - Mission management
Depending on the robot type, an operator can control the robot during execution of the mission and operate it manually. The operator can start on-demand missions, approve remote monitoring missions, monitor running missions, and manually manipulate the robot using the web application's detail view page and scheduled mission buttons. - View and download mission results
After a mission is completed, the results can be viewed and downloaded on the Mission History page.
Screen Example
Dashboard page
Robot page
Robot Management Features
- Robot mission scheduler
This feature manages autonomous missions based on a predefined schedule. - Robot Adapter
This feature allows the RMC to communicate with different robots. Each type of robot to be supported requires its own adapter. (e.g., adapter for Boston Dynamics Spot, adapter for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. EX ROVR)
Downloads
News
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Press Release Mar 21, 2024 Yokogawa Launches OpreX Robot Management Core
- Marks full rollout of robot operations solution for enhancing safety and efficiency at manufacturing sites -
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