Winners of the SPRINT Robotics Awards 2022 Announced

The winners of the SPRINT Robotics Awards 2022 were announced at the World Conference Banquet which was held this year in Amsterdam. An annual event, the SPRINT Robotics Awards acknowledge and reward exceptional work in Inspection and Maintenance robotics in our society and are comprised of three different categories: Groundbreaking Collaborative Work towards Acceptance of Inspection and Maintenance Robotics, Scaling of a Robotic Solution, and New Innovative Technology in Inspection, Maintenance or Cleaning.

Waygate Technologies and PETRONAS were the first-place winners of the SPRINT Robotics Award for Groundbreaking Collaborative Work towards Acceptance of Inspection and Maintenance Robotics. PETRONAS collaborated with Waygate Technologies Robotics (WTR) on the adaption of the BIKE, a very versatile robotic platform for inspection in confined spaces and working at heights to the specific needs of PETRONAS.

In the category Scaling of a Robotic Solution, Diakont was the winner. Diakont developed, introduced, and now scaled the use of robotic systems that perform cleaning and desludging of surfaces in nuclear power plants, for the purpose of reducing worker exposure to radiation and also reducing costs through shortening of nuclear plant refueling outage duration.

Voliro, Shell, and Intertek were awarded first place for the SPRINT Robotics Award for New Innovative Technology in Inspection, Maintenance, or Cleaning. Asset owner Shell, robotics company Voliro, and service company Intertek joined together to develop a drone that can execute a full workflow of a coating spot repair. The true innovation relies on the automatic execution of surface preparation and coating application; that guarantees an asset lifetime extension of roughly five years.

About SPRINT Robotics
Founded in 2015, SPRINT Robotics has become an internationally recognized platform for Inspection & Maintenance (I&M) Robotics with a support base of more than 100 organizations globally. The collaborative aims to achieve field use of I&M robotics of capital-intensive infrastructure assets on a large scale to address immediate needs and long-term industry priorities. In moving towards this goal, one major focus of SPRINT Robotics is to engage and bring together the whole value chain, from end users to service and technology providers. SPRINT Robotics helps develop best practices, fast-track innovations, remove barriers to entry, and encourage knowledge sharing. These efforts enable end users to reduce cost, increase quality, and control the risk of inspection activities. For more information, visit www.sprintrobotics.org.