Intelligent Control and Automation, 2014, 5, 136-145 Published Online August 2014 in SciRes. http://www.scirp.org/journal/ica http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ica.2014.53016 How to cite this paper: Author 1, Author 2 and Author 3 (2014) Paper Title. Intelligent Control and Automation, 5, 136-145. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ica.2014.53016 Opportunities and Challenges of Robotics and Automation in Offshore Oil & Gas Industry Heping Chen 1 , Samuel Stavinoha 1 , Michael Walker 1 , Biao Zhang 2 , Thomas Fuhlbrigge 2 1 Ingram School of Engineering, Texas State University, San Marcos, USA 2 ABB Corporate Research Center, Windsor, USA Email: Heping.chen@txstate.edu , Biao.zhang@us.abb.com Received 21 May 2014; revised 25 June 2014; accepted 10 July 2014 Copyright © 2014 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Abstract The oil and gas industry will continue to boom in the coming few decades. Obtaining oil and gas from conventional and non-conventional resources will become more and more challenging. This intensifying need will impose very considerable demands on work force, financial and technology capabilities. Since the future supplies of oil and gas are to expand, advanced technology will be- come increasingly necessary to obtain access to more challenging conventional and non-conven- tional resources. Therefore oil and gas technologies will be very costly to operate in the coming future due to hostile, hard-to-reach environments. The offshore oil industry will become a com- plicated myriad of advanced equipment, structures, and work force. Our objectives are to identify potential applications and research directions of robotics and automation in the oil & gas field and explore the obstacles and challenges of robotic and automation applications to this area. This study performs the necessary survey and investigation about the work conditions of robotics and automation equipment in the oil and gas industry, especially offshore oil rigs. The oil & gas indus- try processes are first investigated. The personals and tasks are then explored. Furthermore, this paper reviews the current robotic automation technology. The challenges and requirements are identified for robotics and automation equipment in the oil and gas industry. The requirements of robotics and automation in the oil & gas industry are presented. Future research opportunities are discussed from a technical perspective. Keywords Oil & Gas, Robot, Automation, Hazardous Environment, Teleoperation, Offshore Oil & Gas Industry