An inspection robot using infrared thermography for belt conveyor

The key mechanical components of belt conveyor is lack of effective monitoring at present. The traditional monitoring methods such as visual inspection, temperature measurement have shortcoming, the huge workload, blind spots and other issues are difficult to solve. This paper proposes an inspection robot program with infrared thermometer for belt conveyor. Along the inspection track, the motor drive the infrared thermometer moves which mounted on robot. Infrared thermal image of motor, pulleys, rollers and other key transmission components are captured. With image signal processing and pattern recognition technology, the infrared images are processed. After infrared image segmentation, feature extraction and classification, the automatic identification of the typical elements are realized. Finally, make use of the component type that has identified, the warning temperature values and contract the library rules of failure database, this paper achieves a Failure Prognostic System (FRS) on drive system of belt conveyor. Experimental results show that the method can achieve automatic identification and fault warning abnormal temperature rise of motor, pulley and roller and the other mechanical components.