Development of a Wheeled and Wall-pressing Type In-pipe Robot for Water Pipelines Cleaning and Its Traveling Capability

Abstract

Most of existing in-pipe robots are applied to de-fect inspection and regular maintenance, etc. There is al-most no in-pipe robot for big-diameter pipelines cleaningand are still problems of traction force and obstacle-overcoming. To deal with the problems, a novel wheeledand wall-pressing type in-pipe cleaning robot (IPCR) withhigh pressure water jet is proposed. Then the preloadmechanism, traction force, and obstacle-overcoming capa-bility of the IPCR are analyzed. The vibration equations ofthe simplified vibration system of the IPCR are established.Also, the necessity of preloading force is verified andmethods to improve obstacle-overcoming capability areproposed. Finally, the traveling capability is verified in adynamics simulation system. The simulation results showthat the proposed IPCR is powerful with traction force andhas a certain capability of obstacle-overcoming. Setting theattitude angle is zero and adding preloading force to allsprings can obviously weaken vibration of the IPCR.