The ARGOS Challenge (Autonomous Robot for Gas & Oil Sites) is a 3-year competition sponsored and brokered by the oil and gas company TOTAL with the support of the French National Research Agency (ANR). The idea of this challenge is to encourage the development of advanced robotics capabilities in the oil and gas industry. After an evaluation process operated by ANR, TOTAL has financed five teams to take each other on in this Challenge.

In recent years GMV has pinpointed the mobile robotics sector as a top-priority area for spin-off application of its knowledge and expertise built up in satellite navigation, avionics and the development of safety-critical onboard software systems. In this line of work GMV is leading one of the teams, selected by TOTAL on 10 June last to take part in the ARGOS challenge, with participation also from the Portuguese company IdMind as robot manufacturer, the Automatisms and Robotics Center of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas: CSIC) and the Polytechnic University of Madrid (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid: UPM-CAR) as academic partner.

The presented solution is based on an adaptation of FOXIRIS (Flipper-based Oil&Gas ATEX Intelligent RobotIcs System), a well-known, robust and commercially available platform. FOXIRIS is an all-terrain, explosion proof and waterproof robot (protection level IP67); its locomotion is based on tracks enhanced with a few add-on features.

This is the first time that GMV and its partners have worked for the oil and gas industry in the field of rovers and terrestrial robots. As experts in the field of space robotics, however, the team is convinced that its robotics solutions have now matured enough for extension into other fields