Development of a peristaltic crawling inspection robot for 1-inch gas pipes with continuous elbows

Abstract

This paper describes the development of an inspection robot for use in 1-inch gas pipes. These pipes are commonly used in residences and between gas meters and a main pipe that is buried under the road, and they require regular inspection. However, appropriately advanced inspection technologies have not yet been developed. An endoscope, which is the current inspection method, can only be utilized in a limited inspection scenarios. As for robot inspection, current in-pipe robots cannot pass through a 90-degree elbow, which has a radius of curvature equal to its inside diameter (R <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">c</sub> = 1.0 ID). However these elbows are frequently encountered in real-life environments. In this study, to solve these problems, we developed a peristaltic crawling robot with pneumatic artificial muscles for use in 1-inch gas pipes. This robot can pass through a 90-degree elbow (R <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">c</sub> = 1.0 ID) in the horizontal and vertical planes. In addition, this robot can be equipped with an endoscope and take videos inside a pipe. However, has been unable to pass through continuous elbows, which are occasionally encountered. For use in real-life environments, a robot is needed that can pass through continuous elbows. In this paper, we report the development of a robot that can pass through continuous elbows.