Robot device, and method for inspection of components of a belt conveyor

• Main Authors: FREITAS, Gustavo Medeiros, TORRE, Marcos Paulo, FRANCA, André Stanzani, LIZARRALDE, Fernando Cesar, COSTA, Ramon Romankevicius, NEVES, Alex Fernandes, GARCIA, Gabriel Carvalho, MONTEIRO, João Carlos Espiúca, ROCHA, Filipe Augusto Santos, DA FONSECA, Felipe Ribeiro
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 01.08.2024
• Subjects: CALCULATING; COMPUTING; CONVEYING; COUNTING; ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING; HANDLING THIN OR FILAMENTARY MATERIAL; IMAGE DATA PROCESSING OR GENERATION, IN GENERAL; PACKING; PERFORMING OPERATIONS; PHYSICS; PNEUMATIC TUBE CONVEYORS; SHOP CONVEYOR SYSTEMS; STORING; TRANSPORT OR STORAGE DEVICES, e.g. CONVEYORS FOR LOADING ORTIPPING; TRANSPORTING

The present invention relates to a robot device (1) for inspection of components (8, 9, 10) of a belt conveyor (11), comprising a movable platform (2) and a robot arm (3) having a first end (4) coupled to the movable platform (2) and a second end (5), wherein the robot arm (3) comprises an articulated structure configured such as to cause the second end (5) to come into contact with at least one of the components (8, 9, 10) of the belt conveyor (11), and wherein the robot device (1) comprises a vibration sensor (6), a camera (14), a microphone (15) and a laser scanner (16) that are coupled to the second end (5) of the arm (3). The present invention also discloses a method for inspection of components (8, 9, 10) of a belt conveyor (11) using a robot device (1), comprising the step of: obtaining temperature and/or noise data relating to at least one of the components (8, 9, 10) of the belt conveyor (11); and, if the temperature and/or noise data relating to at least one of the components (8, 9, 10) lie outside of a pre-determined band of values, the method further comprises the steps of: causing a second end (5) of a robot arm (3) of the robot device (1) to come into contact with at least one of the components (8, 9, 10) of the belt conveyor (11), wherein the robot arm (3) comprises an articulated structure; and obtaining vibration data relating to at least one of the components (8, 9, 10) by means of the vibration sensor (6).