Concept and Design of A Fully Autonomous Sewer Pipe Inspection Mobile Robot "KANTARO"

Nassiraei, Amir Ali Forough; Kawamura, Yuta; Ahrary, Alireza; Mikuriya, Yoshikazu; Ishii, Kazuo

doi:10.1109/robot.2007.363777

Cited by 115 publications

(56 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…Generally, such pipes require scheduled inspections, as defects in the pipe can lead to large losses [3]. Manually controlled pipe inspection robots were successfully developed and deployed, however the time and cost of deploying these robots meant more new pipework was being laid quicker than it was being inspected so a number of autonomous solutions were developed [4].…”

Section: Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Elbow Detection in Pipes for Autonomous Navigation of Inspection Robots

Brown

Carrasco

Watson

et al. 2018

J Intell Robot Syst

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Nuclear decommissioning is a global challenge with high costs associated with it due to the hazardous environments created by radioactive materials. Most nuclear decommissioning sites contain significant amounts of pipework, the majority of which is uncharacterised with regards radioactive contamination. If there is any uncertainty as to the contamination status of a pipe, it must be treated as contaminated waste, which can lead to very high disposal costs. To overcome this challenge, an in-pipe autonomous robot for characterisation is being developed. One of the most significant mechatronic challenges with the development of such a robot is the detection of elbows in the unknown pipe networks to allow the robotic system to autonomously navigate around them. This paper presents a novel method of predicting the direction and radius of the corner using whisker-like sensors. Experiments have shown that the proposed system has a mean error of 4.69 • in the direction estimation.

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Section: Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Elbow Detection in Pipes for Autonomous Navigation of Inspection Robots

Brown

Carrasco

Watson

et al. 2018

J Intell Robot Syst

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“…It is worth noticing that these robots are manually controlled and experience several limitations including the following two facts: (i) the topology of the pipeline, where some of them have been used, was made simple and does not have vertical segments and Y-and T-branches; and (ii) the robots exhibit localization problems due to several reasons including wheel slips and undetectability of the markers. Some researchers developed semi-autonomous and autonomous solutions [15][16][17]. KANTARO [15] is an autonomous mobile robot used for the inspection of 200-300-mm-diameter sewer pipelines.…”

Section: Robot Agent-based Pipeline Monitoring Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, robot agent-based technologies free the engineers from the confinement of pipeline inaccessibility, environment hazardousness, and system scalability. Therefore, a number of robot agent-based techniques have been studied in the literature, both manually controlled [8][9][10][11][12][13][14] and semi-autonomous/autonomous [15][16][17].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Existing sensor-and robot agent-based pipeline monitoring systems rely on some form of localization method to locate events and support motions of the sensors/agents, e.g., signal triangulation [4], signal crosscorrelation [6], beacon interpolation [18], number of wheel rotations [15], pipe-joint location and counting [19], EM-sonde locating [19], and blueprint of the pipeline [17]. As outlined in Table 1, these methods exhibit several shortcomings related to efficiency and cost-effectiveness in monitoring pipeline systems.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Autonomous pipeline monitoring and maintenance system: a RFID-based approach

Kim

Sharma

Boudriga

et al. 2015

J Wireless Com Network

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Pipeline networks are one of the key infrastructures of our modern life. Proactive monitoring and frequent inspection of pipeline networks are very important for sustaining their safe and efficient functionalities. Existing monitoring and maintenance approaches are costly and inefficient because pipelines can be installed in large scale and in an inaccessible and hazardous environment. To overcome these challenges, we propose a novel Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID)-based Autonomous Maintenance system for Pipelines, called RAMP, which combines robotic, sensing, and RFID technologies for efficient and accurate inspection, corrective reparation, and precise geo-location information. RAMP can provide not only economical and scalable remedy but also safe and customizable solution. RAMP also allows proactive and corrective monitoring and maintenance of pipelines. One prominent advantage of RAMP is that it can be applied to a large variety of pipeline systems including water, sewer, and gas pipelines. Simulation results demonstrate the feasibility and superior performance of RAMP in comparison to the existing pipeline monitoring systems.

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“…A mobile robot "KANTARO" has been proposed for sewer pipe inspection [8]. The wheels of this robot can adapt to pipe bends passively through the passiveactive intelligent moving mechanism.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Variable Pitch Helical Drive in-Pipe Robot

Ren

Liu²,

Chen

et al. 2016

International Journal of Robotics and Automation

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Pipelines are extensively used to transport water, oil, and gas for daily human activities and industrial production. An in-pipe robot is necessary to prevent fluid leakage accident by regularly detecting the quality status of a pipeline. Given the complex paths and shapes of pipes, an in-pipe robot cannot easily pass through curved pipes. In this study, a novel variable pitch helical drive in-pipe robot is introduced. The variable pitch adjusting mechanism makes switching the robot between three motion patterns (normal, variable speed, and turning) easy. The proposed robot can pass through curved pipes actively by controlling the helical angle of each driving wheel separately. The space spiral kinematic trajectories of the passive typical and the active novel helical in-pipe robots are compared. A prototype is developed to verify the validity of the proposed structure and function.

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Concept and Design of A Fully Autonomous Sewer Pipe Inspection Mobile Robot "KANTARO"

Cited by 115 publications

References 6 publications

Elbow Detection in Pipes for Autonomous Navigation of Inspection Robots

Elbow Detection in Pipes for Autonomous Navigation of Inspection Robots

Autonomous pipeline monitoring and maintenance system: a RFID-based approach

Variable Pitch Helical Drive in-Pipe Robot

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