Development of an Adaptive Vehicle for In-Pipe Inspection Task

Abstract

This paper presents an adaptive vehicle for in-pipe inspection tasks. This vehicle can change its configuration to adapt to the diameter variations of the pipe and have general traveling-capability in pipe elbows. The transmission mechanism of the robot adopts a symmetrical three-axis mechanism along the circumference. One axle is the following mechanism, and the other two consist of a two-axle differential mechanism. This design solves the motion interference problems. The robot also has good mobility and real-time flexibility. The variable diameter mechanism combines the advantages of both nut slider and parallelogram linkage. The key components of the robot are analyzed by the finite element methods. From the simulation results, we can study the functionality of the vehicle in an early design stage, so the physical prototype development time and cost are reduced.