Industrial Plant Inspection Image Assignment by Timestamped Commands
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Solution Overview
Problem
The inspection of industrial plants, particularly nuclear reactors, generates a large amount of image data during visual inspections of control rod cluster connectors, which is tedious and prone to misassignment of photographs to incorrect mechanisms.
Innovation Solution
A method using a mobile device to acquire and store image data with timestamps, associating images with specific elements based on command activation times, ensuring chronological sorting and minimizing misassignment through a user interface with touch-sensitive zones and data transfer between acquisition and receiving memories.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If manual integration of photographs into inspection reports is performed, then flexibility in adding comments is improved, but the risk of misassignment of photographs to incorrect mechanisms increases and processing time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary automatic assignment of photographs to mechanisms based on temporal proximity and spatial location data captured during inspection. This preliminary action occurs before final report generation, reducing manual intervention and minimizing misassignment risks while preserving the ability to add comments manually.
Solution Approach 2:
The system provides feedback by displaying assigned photographs alongside mechanism information in the inspection report interface, allowing operators to verify assignments and make corrections if needed. This feedback loop ensures both automated efficiency and manual oversight.
2Measurement precision
If multiple photographs are taken per mechanism, then inspection thoroughness is improved, but the quantity of image data to manage increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system segments the large volume of image data by organizing photographs into groups associated with specific mechanisms using unique identifiers. Each mechanism's photographs are stored and displayed separately, making it easy to manage and navigate through multiple images without being overwhelmed by the total volume.
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates structured digital copies of photograph metadata including timestamps, location data, and mechanism associations. These digital copies enable efficient storage, retrieval, and management of multiple photographs per mechanism without requiring physical handling of original images.
3Productivity
If automated association of image data with elements is implemented, then processing speed is improved, but the complexity of the system increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses a universal application with a standardized user interface that can inspect multiple different elements (connectors, mechanisms, components) across the nuclear reactor. This multi-functional approach automates the association process across diverse elements without requiring separate complex systems for each element type, thereby improving processing speed while controlling overall system complexity.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for inspecting a plurality of elements of an industrial plant includes developing an application having a user interface with a command for each element to be inspected; repeatedly acquiring image data of the elements of the industrial plant using a mobile device, and storing the image data in an acquisition memory, each image datum comprising at least one image and a timestamp indicating a time at which the image datum was acquired; activating commands at respective activation times; and associating the image data with the elements. The image data is associated with a given element being chosen exclusively from the image data having a timestamp between the time of activation of the command corresponding to said element and the time of activation of either the preceding or the following command.