Description of the organization
VES (http://vengineerings.com) is a company providing methods, technologies and systems for safe works at heights
It counts with the expertise of the company “La Línea Vertical” (LLV) which has strong competences on industrial inspection and maintenance. The VES personnel has led the project ICDRON (Contact Inspection With Drones) with the participation of FADA-CATEC and the Spanish Oil and Gas Company (CEPSA) and partially funded by the Spanish “Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnológico e Industrial” (CDTI) of the “Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades”. In this project, they have developed new inspection technologies based on Drones, and particularly aerial robotic manipulation technologies. Furthermore, they have applied to contact inspection in refineries. Particularly the personnel of VES have successfully applied aerial robotic manipulation in the San Roque CEPSA refinery. Thus, thicknesses contact testing in pipes and tanks have been performed.
The personnel of VES are pioneers on the use of drones in industrial and risk installations providing information to the clients on the condition of their key equipment like jets, tanks, jetties, etc., without the needing to be shut down. This includes the development of software and post-processing of the information generated by the drones.
A PhD Thesis in the University of Cadiz is being developed in the framework of the above mentioned ICDRON project.
The VES personnel has also strong expertise in inspection and maintenance activities involving work at height, including between others:
- Industrial chimneys following the recommendation of the International Committee of Industrial Chimneys
- Annual Inspection Plan with thicknesses sampling in refineries and power plants process lines and equipment, when the plant is either online and active or offline. We also apply other NDT techniques such as radiography, dye penetrant and magnetic particle, suited to the task.
- Offshore platforms, inspecting oil rigs in operation or moored in port, using various testing techniques to meet the requirements of periodic checks as eddy current, ultrasonic and magnetic particles
- Review of flare stacks, with applications of Non Destructive Testing (NDT) techniques to assess the status of special areas of difficult access such as guy ropes, burners, sleeves to cover and especially fire-fighting systems
- Maintenance of other large structures such as dams and bridges
- Inspection of cooling tower, silos, spheres and tanks,
- Repairing of concrete structures, fortification and stabilization of embankments, as well as the installation of safe access routes (lifelines and steel cables).
VES will benefit of the technology transfer activities of CATEC in the framework of the Robotics Digital Innovation Hub of Spain (https://robotics-dih.eu/) and the services provided by this Hub including the available demonstrators and testbed facilities, as well as the training on robotics.
The personnel are also members of:
- International Committee for Industrial Chimneys CICIND, member number 493
- Net Suppliers ACHILLES- REPRO, number 302311
- Spanish National Rope Access Association ANETVA, member numbers 80 and 150
- Spanish Association for NDT, member number 9233
- SIKA, homologate in concrete reparation products.
VES benefits of the commercial activities of LLV which has 6 sites in Spain and South America and has performed inspections in more than 50 locations around the world.
VES will lead the tasks: “T8.2 Platform 2: Aerial robotic manipulator and the task “9.3 Validation of Aerial robotic manipulation”.
Involved Staffs
Carlos Martín Espada, Pablo Ramón, José Daniel Ramos
Role in the AERIAL-CORE project and main tasks
Moreover, VES will participate in the specification (Task 2.1), Design of cognitive aerial systems architecture (Task 2.2), End-effectors for holding/grabbing and manipulation (Task 5.1), Manipulators with force interactions (Task 5.2), Validation for manipulation tasks (Task 5.3), Manipulation while flying, holding and perching (Task 6.1), Implementation of cognitive functionalities in aerial manipulation (Task 6.2), Augmented cognitive human-machine interfaces (Task 6.3), Integration of manipulation functions (Task 6.4), Integration of the AERIAL-CORE System (Task 8.5), Testing site preparation for validation experiments (Task 9.1), AERIAL-CORE System integration for inspection (Task 9.5), and AERIAL-CORE Evaluation (Task 9.6). Additionally, it will also participate in WPs 1 and 9.