An Adsorption Robot for Pipeline Inspection of Gas Insulation Switchgear

Abstract

Abstract In order to enable a robot to do the omni-directional mobility for inspection in the pipeline of Gas Insulation Switchgear, a negative pressure adsorption pipeline robot is designed. Firstly, the mechanical structure was designed for the omni-directional mobility based on the negative pressure adsorption. The internal surface motion model of the pipeline robot was built, and a variable adsorption control method was proposed by mechanical analysis. Simulations and experiments showed that the robot could steadily adsorb on any position of the pipeline, which validated the capability of omni-directional mobility for the designed robot. This robot can be used for inspection of the Gas Insulation Switchgear in electric power industry in the near future.