AMBiLAB Demonstrator

The AMBiLAB project focuses on intelligent ICT solutions for operations and maintenance. The solution being developed will ensure more secure and efficient work procedures, and may reduce the overall costs for operations and maintenance.

The overall concept being demonstrated is highlighted in the figure to the right. The overall idea is to equip operations personnel with a PDA or similar electronic tool. All production-critical objects are marked electronically (tags), and all relevant information about the object is stored in the back-office maintenance server. The operations personnel are connected to the back-office maintenance server via a wireless network connection. By using the unique id of the tag as a reference into the maintenance server, relevant information (work order, documentation, graphical models, maintenance log, etc) can be accessed at the point of inspection. Predefined inspection lists are available, guiding the operations personnel through the recommended procedures. The inspector can give input either via an electronic pen or via voice (speech recognition). Completing the inspection, a maintenance report will be generated (more or less) automatically and uploaded to the back-office maintenance server, significantly reducing the time for post-processing.

The technical challenges are divided into three areas:

1. Electronic labels:

The AMBiLAB demonstrator can utilize three different labelling methods:

a. Manual labelling, meaning that the inspector have to manually enter the id of the inspection object. This requires a visual label.

b. Bar code label, meaning that the inspector's PDA is equipped with a bar code reader. The unique id will be detected by reading the bar code on the inspection object. A HP iPAQ 5450 PDA is used in the demonstrator, together with an SPS3000 bar code reader from Symbol.

c. Bluetooth enabled electronic tags, meaning that the inspector's PDA is Bluetooth-enabled and capable of communicating with the tag. The id of the inspection object is automatically transferred to the PDA whenever the PDA enters the coverage region of the tag. The AMBiLAB demonstrator uses simple Bluetooth tags from the company BlueTags, however SINTEF also develops dedicated Bluetooth tags for this purpose.

2. Multimodal user interfaces:

The inspector will interact with the PDA using an electronic pen and voice input, and easy toggling between the two modes is ensured. A lot of operations and maintenance work in the process industry is carried out in harsh weather conditions and noisy environments; hence there is a need for a speech recognition system that tolerates extreme noise. The AMBiLAB demonstrator uses an intelligent earplug developed by the SINTEF spin-off company NACRE, allowing the inspector to communicate normally even in noisy environments. The earplug is adaptive to circumference noise, i.e. the suppression is dependent on the level of circumference noise. Hence in quiet places the earplug will be transparent, allowing the inspector to communicate normally with nearby persons.

3. Wireless network connection:

The AMBiLAB demonstrator assumes a wireless connection to the back-office maintenance server to retrieve and upload information related to an inspection object. The demonstrator utilizes an IEEE 802.11b network for communication to the back-office server. No 802.11b access station will be required, since the PDA and the back-office server communicates in a direct mode.