The ARGOS Challenge was a robotic competition sponsored by Total between 2013 and 2017 and co-organized with Agence nationale de la recherche. The acronym ARGOS stands for Autonomous Robot for Gas and Oil Sites. [1]
After a gas leak occurred at the Elgin-Franklin fields and resulted in a months long shut down of production and evacuation of personnel, Total decided to apply an open-innovation approach to develop robots for increasing the safety of oil and gas production sites. [2]
The competition was won by an Austrian-German team called "Argonauts", consisting of members from Austrian robot maker Taurob GmbH and TU Darmstadt with a variant of the taurob tracker robot. [3] [4]
KTM AG is an Austrian motorcycle, bicycle and sports car manufacturer owned by Pierer Mobility AG and the Indian manufacturer Bajaj Auto. It was formed in 1992 but traces its foundation to as early as 1934. Today, KTM AG is the parent company of the KTM Group, consisting of a number of motorcycle brands.
The Toronto Argonauts are a professional Canadian football team competing in the East Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL), based in Toronto, Ontario. Founded in 1873, the team is the oldest existing professional sports team in North America still using its original name, as well as the oldest-surviving team in both the modern-day CFL and East Division. The team's origins date back to a modified version of rugby football that emerged in North America in the latter half of the 19th century. The Argonauts played their home games at Rogers Centre from 1989 until 2016, when the team moved to BMO Field, the fifth stadium site to host the team.
TotalEnergies SE is a French multinational integrated energy and petroleum company founded in 1924 and is one of the seven supermajor oil companies. Its businesses cover the entire oil and gas chain, from crude oil and natural gas exploration and production to power generation, transportation, refining, petroleum product marketing, and international crude oil and product trading. TotalEnergies is also a large-scale chemicals manufacturer.
OMV is an Austrian multinational integrated oil, gas and petrochemical company which is headquartered in Vienna, Austria. The company is listed on the Vienna Stock Exchange. In the 2021 Forbes Global 2000, OMV Group was ranked as the 413th -largest public company in the world.
The Technische Universität Darmstadt, commonly known as TU Darmstadt, is a research university in the city of Darmstadt, Germany. It was founded in 1877 and received the right to award doctorates in 1899. In 1882, it was the first university in the world to set up a chair in electrical engineering. In 1883, the university founded the first faculty of electrical engineering and introduced the world's first degree course in electrical engineering. In 2004, it became the first German university to be declared as an autonomous university. TU Darmstadt has assumed a pioneering role in Germany. Computer science, electrical engineering, artificial intelligence, mechatronics, business informatics, political science and many more courses were introduced as scientific disciplines in Germany by Darmstadt faculty.
KUKA is a German manufacturer of industrial robots and systems for factory automation. The Chinese company Midea Group owns more than 95% of the company.
ams OSRAM AG, formerly known as austriamicrosystems AG and ams AG, is an Austrian electronics company that designs and manufactures sensors for small form factor, low power, highest sensitivity and multi-sensor applications. Products include sensors, sensor ICs, interfaces and related software for mobile, consumer, communications, industrial, medical, and automotive markets.
Borealis AG is an Austrian chemical company and is the world's eighth largest producer of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP). It is headquartered in Vienna, Austria.
RAG Austria AG (RAG) is the largest gas storage operator and thus energy storage company in Austria. The company focuses its business activities on the storage of natural gas and other gaseous energy and the development of green-gas technologies. With a total storage capacity of more than six billion cubic meters of natural gas, RAG contributes to the security of supply of Austria and Central Europe. RAG operates the Haidach gas storage facility in joint ventures with Gazprom Export and Wingas as well as the 7Fields gas storage facility together with Uniper. In addition RAG operates its own storage facilities at Puchkirchen/Haag, Haidach 5, Aigelsbrunn, 7Fields(RAG). The production and use of gas as fuel are also business areas of RAG.
BP p.l.c. is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. It is one of the oil and gas "supermajors" and one of the world's largest companies measured by revenues and profits. It is a vertically integrated company operating in all areas of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and extraction, refining, distribution and marketing, power generation, and trading.
Wittenstein SE is a German manufacturer of planetary gearheads, gearing technology, complete electromechanical drive systems and AC servo systems and motors. These products are used, for example, in robotic systems, machine tools, packaging, conveyor systems and process technology, defence equipment, Formula One racing, paper and printing presses, nano technology, stage and lifting technology, the aerospace sector and offshore gas and oil extraction. The company's global headquarters is in Igersheim, Germany with North American headquarters in Bartlett, Illinois.
The oil and gas industry plays a central role in the economy of the United Kingdom. Oil and gas account for more than three-quarters of the UK's total primary energy needs. Oil provides 97 per cent of the fuel for transport, and gas is a key fuel for heating and electricity generation. Transport, heating and electricity each account for about one-third of the UK's primary energy needs. Oil and gas are also major feedstocks for the petrochemicals industries producing pharmaceuticals, plastics, cosmetics and domestic appliances.
Vetter Pharma-Fertigung GmbH & Co. KG is a contract manufacturer that supplies the pharmaceutical industry since 1950. The company has production sites in Germany, Austria and the U.S., as well as sales offices in Singapore, Japan and South Korea.
Canadian Natural Resources Limited, or CNRL or Canadian Natural is a senior Canadian oil and natural gas company that operates primarily in the Western Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, with offshore operations in the United Kingdom sector of the North Sea, and offshore Côte d'Ivoire and Gabon. The company, which is headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, has the largest undeveloped base in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin. It is the largest independent producer of natural gas in Western Canada and the largest producer of heavy crude oil in Canada.
The 2017 CFL season was the 64th season of modern-day Canadian football. Officially, it was the 60th season of the Canadian Football League. The regular season began on June 22 and concluded on November 4. The playoffs commenced on November 12 and concluded on November 26 with the Toronto Argonauts defeating the Calgary Stampeders to win the 105th Grey Cup.
Taurob tracker is a mobile robot, manufactured by Taurob GmbH in Austria. It has been originally developed as a remote controlled reconnaissance platform for fire departments. but is currently used also by the military, civil-defense units, universities and the oil and gas industry around the world.
Taurob is an Austrian robotics company best known for its Taurob Tracker and Taurob Inspector robots and for winning Total Energies' ARGOS Challenge in 2017.
The Department of Computer Science is a department of the Technische Universität Darmstadt. With a total of 36 professorships and about 3,700 students in 12 study courses, the Department of Computer Science is the largest department of the university. The department shapes the two research profile areas "Cybersecurity (CYSEC)" and "Internet and Digitization (InDi)" of the university.
Oskar von Stryk is professor of simulation, system optimization and robotics at the department of computer science of the Technische Universität Darmstadt. He is known for his research on robotics.
Taurob Inspector is an ATEX certified mobile robot, developed and manufactured by the Austrian company Taurob GmbH. The Inspector was developed from the Taurob Tracker as part of the OGRIP project.