Shanghai, January 8th, 2019—Recently, Hilong’s “Research and Development on Industrial Application of Multidimensional Sensing Inspection Robot System in the Petrochemical Industry” project was approved as the 2018 Shanghai Artificial Intelligence (AI) Innovation and Development Special Fund Project. The project is currently the only approved AI project for the petrochemical industry in Shanghai. 

With rapid development in national industrial intelligent technologies, unmanned and intelligent systems have become the key development direction for the petroleum industry in recent years. Against this backdrop, application of industrial intelligent technologies and development of inspection robots are critical requirements for the petrochemical industry’s future development. The goal of Hilong’s inspection robot project is to develop a multidimensional intelligent sensing inspection robot system that has the ability to detect multiple safety risk anomalies in key facilities in the petrochemical industry. The system is expected to replace manual inspection, thereby reducing the risk of casualties in this high-risk industry. The system will collect and obtain production operation and maintenance data of key plants and utilize Big Data technologies to rapidly detect and evaluate production equipment status, provide malfunction early warning and alarms, and provide evaluation, decision-making and other functions based on intelligent data analysis and identification technology. The system will ensure safe and stable operations in the petrochemical industry.

Hilong’s inspection robot system will consist of an intelligent inspection robot terminal, a data management application software platform and auxiliary support facilities. The project utilizes current technologies in the field of artificial intelligence (image recognition, voice recognition, Big Data mining, intelligent navigation, etc.), cloud computing and Internet of Things, as well as cutting-edge security detection technologies in the petrochemical industry.

Xu Changxue, Chief Engineer of Hilong Group, said, “Hilong’s inspection robot project is a significant step for Hilong’s technology-led transformation strategy. It will help Hilong upgrade from being a general technology-based enterprise to an intensive high-tech intensive enterprise, while at the same time, it will lay a solid foundation for integrating Hilong’s pipeline business.”

He said that Hilong has already developed two industrial safety monitoring products—Pipeline Line Safety Warning System and Optical Cable Fault Positioning System. Hilong also established an information technology company in 2018, focused on research and development and technical services in industrial safety monitoring and intelligent industrial testing products for the petrochemical industry.