Rockwell and TotalEnergies to Implement RSS
Rockwell Automation, Inc., one of the world's largest companies dedicated to industrial
automation and digital transformation, announced that it is working with TotalEnergies, the global multi-energy company, to implement a robot fleet management system, driving autonomous operations for its offshore platforms.
The long-running project will reach a significant milestone with its first test on an offshore asset scheduled for mid-2023.
Due to the difficult working conditions associated with offshore operations, autonomous operations have long been an aspiration for the oil and gas industries. Energy companies are investing in the use of robotics in these facilities, looking to enable unmanned operations for long periods; reduce employee exposure to hazardous situations; increase safety; attract young talent interested in new technologies; and further reduce CAPEX and OPEX.
"Because of the remote and often harsh environments in which oil and gas companies operate offshore, there is a strategic objective to minimize employee exposure on these platforms," commented Matt Graves, director at Kalypso, a Rockwell Automation company.
"Over the years, this has been achieved by improving the design and automating equipment. But there are still tasks that need to be performed manually, many of which involve observations by operators.
For five years, TotalEnergies has been investigating the use of ground robots to undertake some of these manual tasks and the next step was to develop a control system to operate these robots remotely. For that, they turned to Kalypso."
TotalEnergies has been working with Kalypso and other partners to implement a Robotic Supervision System (RSS). This will allow operators located in an onshore control room to remotely supervise and coordinate the robots using IoT technology, autonomously performing the various activities that field operators are executing on conventional facilities: from periodic inspection operation and maintenance tasks to emergency response.
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