Applied Impact Robotics Wins Chrysalix Petronas Incentive Challenge

Chrysalix, in partnership with PETRONAS, Malaysia’s leading oil & gas company, launched a successful Incentive Challenge to find a safe and economically viable solution to inspect the tank bottoms of Aboveground Storage Tanks (ASTs) without any interruption in service and requiring no human entry. The contest attracted global attention, with nearly 50 teams submitting entries from around the world.

After careful consideration by a team of judges made up of experts from Chrysalix, PETRONAS, Sprint Robotics and RoboValley at TU Delft, Applied Impact Robotics was selected as the winning team. Applied Impact Robotics, led by Fred Briggs and Jade Garrett, stood out from the rest of the field with their strong team, robotic expertise and entrepreneurial experience. Fred and Jade have already successfully developed over 20 prototype solutions.

Fred and Jade’s submission successfully showed they are approaching an outstanding industrial problem from a ne­­­w angle based on biomimicry, using pneumatic vibration to navigate sludge. Currently, there is no solution available that can easily inspect ASTs with sludge so if their solution works in the field, it will be a big breakthrough for the oil & gas industry.

On behalf of Chrysalix and PETRONAS, we congratulate Applied Impact Robotics on their win and look forward to working with them to develop and commercialize what could be a breakthrough solution for AST inspections!