Dynamic analysis and control of a robotic pipe crawler

Abstract

In this paper the design and development of a crawling robot for inspection of live water pipes is addressed. The mechanical design of the robot is described briefly. A fuzzy-logic based control strategy is adopted to maintain a constant translational speed in robotpsilas motion when subjected to flow disturbances that are numerically modeled using step changes in flow velocity within a simulation environment. The controller has been synthesized in real-time through a human-in-the-loop setting within a virtual reality environment.