A Novel Design of in Pipe Robot for Inner Surface Inspection of Large Size Pipes^#

摘要

Abstract This paper presents a novel design of robot measuring machine for inner surface inspection of large size pipes. This prototype represents an integrated mechatronic structure design of a high precision measurement machine. In mechanical design the presented measurement equipment consists of two main parts, an automatic in-pipe mobile vehicle with four degree of freedom and a 3D laser scanning system. In electronic design, the system is embedded with a professional software package, which includes a number of function modules such as data processing and analysis, surface model reconstruction, and finite element analysis etc. Further the intelligence of the machine is enhanced with an adaptive control strategy to suppress vibration disturbance, caused by environmental noise, so that the measurement accuracy of the robot system is guaranteed within the specified precision level (micrometer). The measurement diameter can range from 580 to 1000 mm. Several bench tests are presented to demonstrate the measuring machine performance.