Design of a Multi-body Pipe Inspection Robot

Abstract

This paper presents a new hypermobile robot for inspecting pipes of different diameters. The robot is composed of three modules, two driving modules and one control module which are linked by a passive joint. The driving module has eight actuators: four gearmotors to propel the robot along the pipe, and four servomotors to control the radial position of the robot in the pipe and to maintain the robot's balance. A Raspberry Pi is used to control the actuators, acquire sensors feedback, and receive commands from a remote wireless user-controlled GUI. A set of preliminary experimental tests was conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the system.