Aerial inspection robot and inspection method for outer wall of containment

Abstract

The invention belongs to the technical field of nuclear power station containment outer wall state inspection, and aims to solve the problems of inconvenience in manual operation and overlarge visual inspection error. The invention discloses an aerial inspection robot and inspection method for the outer wall of a containment vessel, the robot comprises a cage-type anti-collision unmanned aerial vehicle and a cage-type anti-collision structure arranged outside the cage-type anti-collision unmanned aerial vehicle, and the cage-type anti-collision structure comprises a hollow structure arranged at the upper part and a disc-type damping ring arranged at the lower part; the inspection method comprises the step that the aerial inspection robot for the outer wall of the containment is adopted for S-curve and reverse J-shaped curve motion inspection. The device overcomes the environmental characteristics of a coastal area, adapts to the special requirements of the nuclear power station, has anti-collision and self-adaptive navigation functions, and can be used for inspecting the outer wall of the containment of the nuclear power station.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The present application belongs to the technical field of nuclear power plant containment outer wall status inspection, and in particular, relates to an aerial inspection robot and an inspection method for the containment outer wall. Background Art

[0002] At present, most of the nuclear power plants built in China are located in coastal areas. Under normal circumstances, they have to withstand the erosion of sea breeze with high chloride ion content and direct sunlight, as well as the influence of environmental factors such as typhoons and earthquakes. The influence of these environmental factors will lead to carbonization of the concrete surface, corrosion of steel bars and prestressed systems, damage or cracks, reduced bearing capacity, and shortened service life. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct regular appearance inspections of nuclear power plant containment, conduct basic assessments of its appearance defects, and continuously track and analyze them.

[0003] The above-mentioned inspections are basically carried out manually with the help of road equipment such as ground mobile platforms, which have the disadvantages of low efficiency, high risk and long cycle.

[0004] According to relevant regulations, the concrete containment needs to be inspected regularly in service, requiring a comprehensive visual inspection of the concrete surface, which should be detailed enough to easily identify areas of concrete deterioration and damage, and requires inspections every five and fifteen years and every ten years thereafter. However, the current manual inspection method is to conduct routine monitoring of its outer cylinder manually, which has the disadvantages of too high a containment, no gripping objects, inconvenient manual climbing, and large visual errors. At the same time, the inspection efficiency is low and there are great safety hazards in the implementation of the project, which cannot meet this demand. If conventional drones are used for inspection, it is impossible to overcome the environmental characteristics of the coastal area. For example, there are many typhoon days in the coastal area and the wind speed is high. If conventional small and medium-sized drones are used to inspect the containment, the inspection implementation is due to the large external area of ​​the containment, the complex environment, and the strong wind. The ordinary drone cannot be repaired after crashing, resulting in high costs. At the same time, it also poses a safety hazard to the nuclear power plant and cannot be applied to nuclear power plants in coastal areas. Summary of the invention

[0005] The purpose of this application is to provide an aerial inspection robot and inspection method for the outer wall of the containment vessel, so as to solve the problems of inconvenient manual work, low inspection efficiency, potential safety hazards in engineering implementation, and high costs caused by the inability to repair ordinary drones due to damage.

[0006] In order to achieve the above objectives, this application provides the following technical solutions:

[0007] In a first aspect, the present application provides an aerial inspection robot for the outer wall of a containment vessel, comprising a cage-type anti-collision UAV and a cage-type anti-collision structure arranged outside the cage-type anti-collision UAV, wherein the cage-type anti-collision structure comprises a hollow structure arranged at the upper part and a disc-type shock-absorbing ring arranged at the lower part.

[0008] In some embodiments, the hollow structure and the disc-type shock-absorbing ring are fixed by a double buckle structure.

[0009] In some embodiments, a third ring support is provided at the bottom of the hollow structure, and the third ring support and the disc-type shock-absorbing ring are connected by upper and lower buckle plates.

[0010] In some embodiments, the hollow structure includes a first circle of annular supports, a second circle of annular supports and a third circle of annular supports arranged in sequence from top to bottom, and the first circle of annular supports, the second circle of annular supports and the third circle of annular supports are connected by fixing ribs.

[0011] In some embodiments, an annular fixing ring is provided on the top of the hollow structure, and the top of the fixing rib is mounted on the annular fixing ring.

[0012] In some embodiments, the fixing rib and the annular fixing ring are connected by fixing screws.

[0013] In some embodiments, a bottom shape fixing block is provided below the disc-type shock absorbing ring.

[0014] In a second aspect, the present application provides an aerial inspection method for the outer wall of a containment vessel, using the aerial inspection robot for the outer wall of the containment vessel to perform S-curve and reverse J-curve motion inspections.

[0015] In some embodiments, the S-curve motion check includes: under the command of the ground control platform, cage drone one, cage drone two, and cage drone three take off from the middle of the cylinder of the containment shell, the cage drone one executes reverse J-curve No. 1 along the containment shell, the cage drone two executes reverse J-curve No. 2 along the containment shell, and the cage drone three takes off along the containment shell by executing reverse J-curve No. 3.

[0016] In some embodiments, the reverse J-curve motion inspection includes: using a cage-type anti-collision drone, taking off from the bottom of the upper head of the containment vessel, and moving around the upper head of the containment vessel in an S-curve trajectory.

[0017] Compared with the prior art, the aerial inspection robot and inspection method for the outer wall of the containment vessel provided by the present application have the following beneficial effects:

[0018] The present application overcomes the environmental characteristics of coastal areas, adapts to the special requirements of nuclear power plants, has anti-collision and adaptive navigation features, and can be used to inspect the outer wall of the containment vessel of a nuclear power plant.

[0019] This application can improve inspection efficiency from conventional ground inspections to automatic aerial cruise inspections, lining up drones, and forming multiple groups of drones to follow specific trajectories while simultaneously performing coverage inspections on the outer wall of the containment, greatly improving inspection efficiency.

[0020] This application can reduce operational risks, eliminate scaffold climbing, high-altitude work projects, and basically eliminate manual high-altitude work, thereby reducing industrial safety risks.

[0021] The present application adopts a cage-type three-dimensional structure. When the drone falls to the ground or collides from the side, the cage structure absorbs the energy of the collision or landing, thereby reducing the probability of the drone colliding with nuclear facilities such as the containment vessel and reducing the risk of damaging the nuclear facilities.

[0022] The present application adopts self-navigating S-curve flight, has the function of automatic return in case of communication interruption, and flies in an S-curve around a hemispherical structure, which reduces the navigation time and increases the inspection time. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0023] In order to more clearly illustrate the technical solution of the present application, the following is a brief introduction to the drawings required for the technical description.

[0024] Figure 1 A schematic diagram of the structure of the aerial inspection robot provided for this application;

[0025] Figure 2 A side view of the aerial inspection robot provided for this application;

[0026] Figure 3 Schematic diagram of other similar cage-type structures provided for this application;

[0027] Figure 4 Schematic diagram of the detection directions of the three aerial inspection robots provided for this application;

[0028] Figure 5 Schematic diagram of the S-curve trajectory of the aerial inspection robot provided in this application.

[0029] Description of reference numerals:

[0030] 1. Anti-collision UAV; 2. Annular fixing ring; 3. Fixing screws; 4. Fixing ribs; 5. First ring of annular supports; 6. Second ring of annular supports; 7. Third ring of annular supports; 8. Upper and lower buckle plates; 9. Disc shock-absorbing ring; 10. Bottom shape fixing block; 11. No. 1 reverse J-shaped curve; 12. No. 2 reverse J-shaped curve; 13. No. 3 reverse J-shaped curve; 14. Containment shell; 15. Cage UAV A; 16. Cage UAV B; 17. Cage UAV C; 18. S-curve trajectory; 19. Containment upper head. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0031] The following is further explained in detail through specific implementation methods.

[0032] like Figures 1 to 3 As shown, the present application provides an aerial inspection robot for the outer wall of a containment vessel. The robot is designed with a cage-type anti-collision structure, and its main body includes an anti-collision drone 1. The exterior of the drone is composed of a plurality of high-strength, energy-absorbing materials to form a cage-like structure. At the same time, a blank space is reserved in the inspection probe area carried by the drone to facilitate data collection by the inspection probe. After the drone fails, the cage-type structure plays a role in absorbing huge impacts, which not only protects the drone from huge impacts, but also protects the containment vessel and nuclear facilities from collisions.

[0033] Path planning technology is developed for different containment areas. UAV automatic cruise planning divides the UAV route planning hardware system into modules according to different needs, and is divided into multiple performance modules, namely navigation data acquisition and fusion module, flight control module, motor control module, communication protocol control module, system status monitoring module and data recording module.

[0034] The navigation information fusion module can input the real-time status data of the drone's gyroscope, airspeed meter, GPS, airborne visual guidance system, ultra-wideband radar and other devices together with the drone's flight speed, position, acceleration and other information into the flight control module to formulate the drone's real-time flight path. The flight control module analyzes the drone's path navigation information and flight status data, and relies on control algorithm calculation to achieve control of the drone's horizontal position, flight status, flight altitude, and flight route. In route planning, it follows simple principles and allows the drone to complete complex and changeable flight missions according to different timing combinations. The communication protocol control module relies on a multi-channel approach to complete information interaction between the drone and the ground control platform.

[0035] The aerial inspection robot for the outer wall of the containment vessel provided in the present application includes a cage-type anti-collision UAV 1 and a cage-type anti-collision structure arranged on the outside of the cage-type anti-collision UAV 1. The cage-type anti-collision structure includes a hollow structure arranged at the upper part and a disc-type shock-absorbing ring 9 arranged at the lower part. The cage-type structure and the disc-type shock-absorbing ring 9 are fixed in a detachable manner.

[0036] like Figure 1 and Figure 2 As shown, the cage-type anti-collision drone 1 includes an annular fixing ring 2, fixing screws 3, fixing ribs 4, a first ring annular support 5, a second ring annular support 6, a third ring annular support 7, upper and lower buckle plates 8, a disc-type shock-absorbing ring 9, and a bottom shape fixing block 10.

[0037] A plurality of fixing ribs 4 pass through the first annular support 5, the second annular support 6, and the third annular support 7. Each annular support is provided with a through hole inside, and the fixing ribs 4 pass through the holes inside the annular support. The plurality of fixing ribs 4 finally gather in the annular fixing ring 2 and are fixed by fixing screws 3. The annular fixing ring 2, the first annular support 5, the second annular support 6, and the third annular support 7 are formed into a whole by the fixing ribs 4.

[0038] The present application adopts a double-buckle structure to quickly buckle and fix the upper and lower parts of the cage-type shield, which is convenient for installation and removal. Because the structure is hollow, on the one hand, when the drone's internal wings rotate, when it loses control or collides, the drone's wings are protected from direct contact with the structure, thus protecting the drone's wings. On the other hand, it has a large amount of space inside and is symmetrical in structure, which ensures the stability of the entire drone under certain wind force.

[0039] A disc-type shock absorbing ring 9 is arranged below the third ring-shaped support 7, and a bottom shape fixing block 10 is arranged below the disc-type shock absorbing ring 9. The third ring-shaped support 7 and the disc-type shock absorbing ring 9 are fixed by upper and lower buckle plates 8. To ensure that the disc-type shock absorbing ring 9 has a firm structure and will not be deformed under a wind force of level 5, the bottom shape fixing block 10 fixes the tail of the disc-type shock absorbing ring 9.

[0040] The disc-type shock-absorbing ring 9 is fixed to the lower part of the cage-type shield, and a gravity distribution block is designed at the lower part of the disc-type shock-absorbing ring 9, so that the structure of the entire disc-type shock-absorbing ring 9 is evenly distributed. After the UAV loses control or falls, during the landing period, the disc-type shock-absorbing ring 9 lands first, and uses its own disc spring structure to absorb the huge landing energy, reducing the damage to the UAV fuselage caused by the fall, and also protecting the basic functions of the UAV, thereby reducing the failure rate of the UAV in engineering applications and increasing the frequency of use of the UAV.

[0041] like Figure 3 As shown, optionally, this application adopts Figure 3 The cage structure of the form is Figure 1 and Figure 2 Cage structures used for high-mid-void and large-space areas. Figure 3 Suitable for low hollow areas, relatively narrow areas, smooth external structure, can smoothly pass through narrow areas. According to the actual working environment, it can be replaced Figure 3 When working in a high-middle hollow or large space area, a cage-type anti-collision structure formed by a hollow structure at the top and a disc-type shock-absorbing ring 9 at the bottom is used, such as Figure 2 When working in a narrow area (such as a small area), a cage-type anti-collision structure formed by a hollow structure that is symmetrical up and down is used, such as Figure 3As shown. By designing two cage-type anti-collision structures to cope with different operating environments, the outer wall of the containment of a nuclear power plant can be inspected.

[0042] The reverse J-curve inspection method is: Figure 4 As shown, under the command of the ground control platform, at least three cage drones or multiple cage drones (cage drone 15, cage drone 2 16, cage drone 3 17) take off from the middle of the cylinder of the containment shell 14, cage drone 1 15 executes No. 1 reverse J-shaped curve 11 along the containment shell 14, cage drone 2 16 executes No. 2 reverse J-shaped curve 12 along the containment shell 14, and cage drone 3 17 takes off along the containment shell 14 executing No. 3 reverse J-shaped curve 13. The reverse J-shaped curve inspection is an inspection track for the non-cylinder structure of the containment, and the shortest inspection path can be achieved by using the J-shaped curve.

[0043] The S curve inspection method is: Figure 5 As shown, the cage-type UAV takes off from the bottom of the upper head 19 of the containment shell, and moves along the upper head 19 of the containment shell in an S-curved trajectory 18.

[0044] This application adopts S-curve and reverse J-curve motion inspection technology. Multiple drones move in reverse J-curve along the outer shell of the containment to achieve rapid inspection results. At the same time, the outer head of the containment is sealed, and S-curve motion is made along the outer surface of the outer upper head, so as to cover the inspection area in a short time.

[0045] This application uses the coordination of multiple drones, with each drone maintaining a certain distance between them and the containment shell. After receiving the command from the ground control console, they take off one by one and hover at a certain horizontal position. At the same time, the drones interact with each other and move with each other, maintaining a certain angle and distance.

[0046] In addition, based on the above-mentioned aerial inspection robot for the outer wall of the containment vessel, the present application also provides an aerial inspection method for the outer wall of the containment vessel, which uses the aerial inspection robot to perform S-curve and reverse J-curve motion inspections.

[0047] The reverse J-curve inspection process includes: Figure 4As shown, under the command of the ground control platform, at least three cage drones or multiple cage drones (cage drone 15, cage drone 2 16, cage drone 3 17) take off from the middle of the cylinder of the containment shell 14, cage drone 1 15 executes No. 1 reverse J-shaped curve 11 along the containment shell 14, cage drone 2 16 executes No. 2 reverse J-shaped curve 12 along the containment shell 14, and cage drone 3 17 takes off along the containment shell 14 executing No. 3 reverse J-shaped curve 13. The reverse J-shaped curve inspection is an inspection track for the non-cylinder structure of the containment, and the shortest inspection path can be achieved by using the J-shaped curve.

[0048] The S-curve inspection process includes: Figure 5 As shown, the cage drone takes off from the bottom of the containment upper head 19 and moves along the containment upper head 19 in an S-curved trajectory 18. Performing an S-curve inspection, that is, performing an S-curve inspection around the containment cylinder structure, can achieve the shortest path inspection, the shortest inspection time, and at the same time can overlap and cover, eliminating the risk of incomplete inspection coverage.

[0049] This method designs two types of inspection curves to fit the inspection of the outer wall of the containment vessel of a nuclear power plant in coastal areas. By utilizing the above-mentioned aerial inspection robot, it not only overcomes the safety hazards that conventional aerial robots may cause to nuclear power plants, but also enables a complete inspection of the outer wall of the containment vessel.

[0050] Multiple groups of drones are placed near the control platform to obtain weather and wind speed information in the local area. The wind speed is lower than the safety level 5, which meets the flight conditions. The drones are started one by one, and the communication between the drone and the control platform is established. The green signal light indicates that the connection is normal. The control command is started, and multiple groups of drones take off in formation in turn, flying along the bottom of the cylinder wall of the outer wall of the containment according to a 360-degree uniform distribution. At the same time, the range sensor on the drone keeps the drone and the outer wall of the containment at a fixed distance. When the communication is interrupted, the drone switches to the automatic return program, and the drone team returns to the control platform in turn. The inspection plan is started. When the drone inspects the hemispherical part of the containment, the drone flies around the hemisphere and flies along the S-curve trajectory. When the communication is interrupted and the return program fails, the drone loses control and falls from the air. The cage structure touches the ground first, and the cage structure absorbs the landing energy to protect the drone from damage.

[0051] The above description is only a specific implementation manner of the present application, but the protection scope of the present application is not limited thereto. Any changes or substitutions that can be easily conceived by any technician familiar with the technical field within the technical scope disclosed in the present application should be covered within the protection scope of the present application.

Claims

1. An aerial inspection robot for the outer wall of a containment vessel, characterized in that: The invention comprises a cage-type anti-collision type UAV (1) and a cage-type anti-collision structure arranged outside the cage-type anti-collision type UAV (1), wherein the cage-type anti-collision structure comprises a hollow structure arranged at the upper part and a disc-type shock absorbing ring (9) arranged at the lower part.

2. The aerial inspection robot for the outer wall of a containment vessel according to claim 1, characterized in that: The hollow structure and the disc-type shock-absorbing ring (9) are fixed via a double buckle structure.

3. The aerial inspection robot for the outer wall of a containment vessel according to claim 2, characterized in that: A third ring support (7) is provided at the bottom of the hollow structure, and the third ring support (7) and the disc-type shock-absorbing ring (9) are connected via upper and lower buckle plates (8).

4. The aerial inspection robot for the outer wall of a containment vessel according to claim 1, characterized in that: The hollow structure comprises a first ring-shaped support (5), a second ring-shaped support (6) and a third ring-shaped support (7) which are arranged in sequence from top to bottom, and the first ring-shaped support (5), the second ring-shaped support (6) and the third ring-shaped support (7) are connected by fixing ribs (4).

5. The aerial inspection robot for the outer wall of a containment vessel according to claim 4, characterized in that: An annular fixing ring (2) is provided on the top of the hollow structure, and the top of the fixing rib (4) is mounted on the annular fixing ring (2).

6. The aerial inspection robot for the outer wall of a containment vessel according to claim 5, characterized in that: The fixing rib (4) and the annular fixing ring (2) are connected via fixing screws (3).

7. The aerial inspection robot for the outer wall of a containment vessel according to claim 1, characterized in that: A bottom shape fixing block (10) is provided below the disc-type shock absorbing ring (9).

8. A method for aerial inspection of the outer wall of a containment vessel, characterized in that: The aerial inspection robot for the outer wall of the containment vessel as described in any one of claims 1 to 7 is used to perform S-curve and reverse J-curve motion inspections.

9. The aerial inspection method for the outer wall of a containment vessel according to claim 8, characterized in that: S-curve motion checks include: Under the command of the ground control platform, cage-type drone one (15), cage-type drone two (16), and cage-type drone three (17) take off from the middle of the cylinder of the containment shell (14), the cage-type drone one (15) executes the No. 1 reverse J-shaped curve (11) along the containment shell (14), the cage-type drone two (16) executes the No. 2 reverse J-shaped curve (12) along the containment shell (14), and the cage-type drone three (17) takes off along the No. 3 reverse J-shaped curve (13) along the containment shell (14).

10. The aerial inspection method for the outer wall of a containment vessel according to claim 8, characterized in that: The reverse J-curve movement test includes: A cage-type anti-collision drone is used, which takes off from the bottom of the upper head (19) of the containment shell and moves along the upper head (19) of the containment shell in an S-curved trajectory (18).

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