System and method of monitoring an industrial plant

An industrial plant monitoring system configured to monitor an industrial plant, the industrial plant monitoring system comprising:

• one or more processors;
• a trajectory database that stores location of waypoints and predetermined actions to be performed by an autonomous vehicle;
• a model repository that stores information about physical attributes of plant building and equipment and respective locations of the plant building and equipment;
• a handheld computer configured to communicate with the trajectory database and the model repository, the handheld computer comprising one or more processors configured to:
• retrieve a trajectory from the trajectory database;
• retrieve a model of the industrial plant from the model repository;
• and
• navigate the autonomous vehicle including at least one sensor to a waypoint using the trajectory that is retrieved by the handheld computer, wherein the waypoint is identified with respect to the model of the industrial plant from the model repository;
• a communication hardware module configured to receive sensor data from the at least one sensor;
• and
• a plant information management server configured to communicate with the handheld computer, the plant information management server comprising an analysis module configured to:
• receive the sensor data, by the communication module, from at least one sensor;
• detect an event related to the industrial plant based on historic sensor data and non-historic sensor data, wherein the non-historic sensor data is the received sensor data that was generated by the at least one sensor on the autonomous vehicle, the historic sensor data had been generated by the at least one sensor on the autonomous vehicle before the non-historic sensor data was generated by the at least one sensor on the autonomous vehicle.

An autonomous vehicle comprising:

• a communication hardware module configured to communicate with a plant information management server comprising an analysis module and a trajectory database;
• one or more processors configured to:
• retrieve a trajectory from the trajectory database;
• and
• navigate the autonomous vehicle to a waypoint using the retrieved trajectory, wherein the waypoint is identified with respect to a model of an industrial plant from a model repository to which a handheld computer is in communication over a communication network, wherein the model repository stores information about physical attributes of plant building and equipment and respective locations of the plant building and equipment;
• and
• at least one sensor configured to collect sensor data at the waypoint;
• wherein the communication hardware module is configured to communicate with the at least one sensor and transmit the sensor data to the analysis module.