2A2-L08 Development of articulated spherical wheeled in-pipe robot "ThesV"(Mobile Robot with Special Mechanism)

摘要

To realize the piping inspection from the inside, mobile robots which can travel long distance in the pipeline are necessary. So, we propose new mechanism for in-pipe robot in this paper. This mechanism "ThesV" has multiple spherical wheels and controls the posture by pulling two wires going through the body. By applying connected differential mechanism, ThesV can adapt the posture to the pipe shape and support its body against the internal wall of the pipe without complex control. And it can rotate on pipe axis and select course in T-branch with simple mechanism. Finally, through the motion experiments: experiment of velocity measurement, rotational motion, moving in vertical pipe, passing elbow and course selection, we showed usefulness of the concept.