The jury has just announced the results of the first ARGOS Challenge competition, held in southwestern France in June. The goal of the Challenge is to develop an autonomous robot that can move around our oil and gas production sites, to strengthen the safety of our teams.
During the competition, the jury looked closely at the prototypes’ ability to detect alarms autonomously, how well they moved around the site, how efficiently they collected data and how user-friendly the human machine interface was. Different teams excelled in different areas.
The French team, VIKINGS, obtained the best overall performance. But that doesn’t mean it’s a shoo-in — the Austrian/German ARGONAUTS came a close second.
Robot Challenge ARGOSZoom
The VIKINGS prototype is equipped with a measurement mast that can detect and analyze situations that could arise during monitoring.
The teams still have many challenges ahead before the second of the three competitions, which is scheduled for March 2016. The degree of difficulty will increase — the prototypes will have to climb up and down stairs, collect data in different environments, analyze them and then adjust their operation appropriately.