Design and Development of a Hardware-in-the Loop Simulation System for a Submersible Pipe Inspecting Robot

Abstract

An autonomous smart vehicle for doing in service water pipe inspection has been designed and built at the University of Regina. The robot can crawl inside in-service horizontal/vertical water pipes. The spinning head of the robot can generate a helical forward motion utilizing a track of sprung wheels positioned with an angle with respect to the longitudinal axis of the robot. The wheels can exert a normal force onto the inner wall of the pipe supporting robot's own weight when moving vertical. The translational motion (i.e., position and velocity) of the main body of the robot carrying onboard non-destructive testing units and/or navigation sensors must be accurately controlled for precise inspection of pipes at any bandwidth and/or accurate autonomous navigation. For this purpose, a hardware-in-the-loop simulation system is proposed for rapid prototyping of different control strategies for regulating robot's movement taking the hydrodynamic forces exerted on the system and its dynamics into account