Development of a novel crawler mechanism for pipe inspection

Nagase, Jun-ya; Fukunaga, Fumika

doi:10.1109/iecon.2016.7793844

Cited by 17 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…A large variety of robots have been designed to inspect pipes internally [ 17 , 18 ]. In fact, the most popular method of inspection is intelligent pigging [ 19 , 20 ], which makes use of devices equipped with sensors that navigate inside the pipes carried by the pipeline’s fluid.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soft-Tentacle Gripper for Pipe Crawling to Inspect Industrial Facilities Using UAVs

Rubiales

Soria

Arrue

et al. 2021

Sensors

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This paper presents a crawling mechanism using a soft-tentacle gripper integrated into an unmanned aerial vehicle for pipe inspection in industrial environments. The objective was to allow the aerial robot to perch and crawl along the pipe, minimizing the energy consumption, and allowing to perform contact inspection. This paper introduces the design of the soft limbs of the gripper and also the internal mechanism that allows movement along pipes. Several tests have been carried out to ensure the grasping capability on the pipe and the performance and reliability of the developed system. This paper shows the complete development of the system using additive manufacturing techniques and includes the results of experiments performed in realistic environments.

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Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soft-Tentacle Gripper for Pipe Crawling to Inspect Industrial Facilities Using UAVs

Rubiales

Soria

Arrue

et al. 2021

Sensors

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show abstract

“…In addition to this, Roh and Choi [6] found the current consumption was increased by 10% when no control was used, making BF less efficient than controlled methods. Examples of systems that use BF to corner [13,14] will be discussed in further detail in this section. Work has been completed on reducing the effect of the extra forces on the robot when using BF by making it compliant, to remove the need for a complex control system.…”

Section: Pipe Inspection Robotsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Work has been completed on reducing the effect of the extra forces on the robot when using BF by making it compliant, to remove the need for a complex control system. Such as the Tracked robot from Nagase and Fukunaga [13], it requires only one motor for navigating elbows, vertical sections and variable pipe diameters. As it is not a Differential Drive it is unable to actively choose direction so it is unsuitable for navigating complex junctions.…”

Section: Pipe Inspection Robotsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Autonomous Elbow Controller for Differential Drive In-Pipe Robots

2021

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The inspection of legacy nuclear facilities to aid in decommissioning is a world wide issue. One of the challenges is the characterisation of pipe networks within them. This paper presents an autonomous control system for the navigation of these unknown pipe networks, specifically focusing on elbows. The controller utilises three low-cost feeler sensors to navigate the FURO ii@ robot around 150 mm short elbows. The controller is shown to allow the robot to safely navigate around an elbow on all 39 attempts comparing that with the brute force method which only completed five of the nine attempts and damaging the robot. This shows the advantages of the proposed controller. A new metric (Impulse) is also proposed to compare the extra force applied to the robot over the time it is slipping in the elbow due to the errors in the drive unit speeds. Using this metric, the controller is shown to decrease the Impulse applied to the robot by 213.97 Ns when compared to the brute force method.

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“…A simplistic tracked robot from Nagase and Fukunaga [16] requires only one motor for navigating junctions, vertical sections and variable pipe diameters but it is unable to actively chose direction so is unsuitable.…”

Section: In-pipe Corneringmentioning

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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Development of a novel crawler mechanism for pipe inspection

Cited by 17 publications

References 15 publications

Soft-Tentacle Gripper for Pipe Crawling to Inspect Industrial Facilities Using UAVs

Soft-Tentacle Gripper for Pipe Crawling to Inspect Industrial Facilities Using UAVs

Autonomous Elbow Controller for Differential Drive In-Pipe Robots

Elbow Detection in Pipes for Autonomous Navigation of Inspection Robots

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