Consortium improves communication between oil and gas employees and robots
Marie Donlon | October 15, 2020Researchers from the Offshore Robotics for the Certification of Assets (Orca) Hub, which is an organization of universities, an engineering software firm and a data science company, have developed a system that will enable improved communications between robots and human oil and gas platform employees.
The so-called Multimodal Intelligent Interaction for Autonomous System (Miriam) is designed to help build the trust that oil and gas rig platform workers have in robots, along with developing a better understanding of the robots’ actions.
According to its developers, Miriam enables oil and gas rig workers to either send texts to or vocally ask questions of robots to determine where they are located and what tasks they might be engaged in. Once a question is issued — for example, "where is the robot located?" — the robot responds, communicating its location and any other details about its functioning that need to be addressed to the oil and gas platform workers.
Miriam’s developers believe that creating this improved communication channel between robots and workers will save employees time, strengthen communications, and thus trust, and keep human operators safe on oil and gas rigs, which can be hazardous.
Consortium members of the Orca Hub include universities led by Heriot-Watt and Edinburgh, engineering software firm Phusion IM and data science company Merkle Aquila.