The Inspector-series robot, designed and manufactured by Newton Labs, was developed to enable nuclear plant owners to meet the storage tank segment of their BPIG objectives of ensuring the structural integrity and operability of their buried piping and water storage tanks as required by NEI 09-14. The semi-autonomous Inspector robot is able to survey over 90 percent of a tank floor with a specialized NDE sensor package consisting of phased array ultra-sound, eddy current, laser scanning, and high resolution cameras. The position of revealed indications are precisely mapped and recorded, enabling the robot to return to the location of every mapped defect to within +/- 1/8th inch accuracy, whether during the initial inspection or years later.
Comprehensive, in-service tank surveys with Inspector-series robots are available to nuclear plant owners exclusively through IHI Southwest Technologies, Inc., a leader in nuclear industry nondestructive testing services.