Abstract
This paper presents a novel double-direction inchworm in-pipe robot, called the Cam-Linkage Robot (CLR), used to carry sensors and instruments to perform inspection and cleaning jobs inside pipelines. The prototype has been developed to improve the driving ability and reduce the difficulty of control. CLR is suitable for pipe diameters from 360 mm to 400 mm due to its functions of manual adjustment and automatic adaptation. The structure of CLR was presented and some critical design issues on the principle of cam-linkage mechanism were discussed. Based on cam-linkage mechanism, CLR could press the wall actively and creep in two directions via only one motor, so this research has broken the limitation that traditional active wall-press robot needs more than one actuator. The cam pressure angle could be reduced to 0, and the propulsion ability was almost not weakened by the support motion at the stable support stage. Finally, experiments were conducted to validate the locomotion principle and the effectiveness of CLR.
Highlights
Pipelines are widely used in water, oils, gases and solid particles transportation
This paper mainly presents a novel in-pipe robot, called Cam-Linkage Robot (CLR)
It could creep forward and backward in a circular pipe and U groove through a motor. This characteristic improves the efficiency of motor utilization and reduce the difficulty of control, and some simple but effective arguments on CLR have been presented
Summary
Pipelines are widely used in water, oils, gases and solid particles transportation. Some damage and jam appear in the pipelines, such as corrosion, blocking, and cracks. In-pipe robots are considered as one of the most attractive equipment for the pipeline inspection, maintenance, and cleaning.[1,2] In addition, wet pipes will reduce the insulation of the circuit board and cause short circuit.[3] Such applications require a simple control method and sufficient traction ability to pull or push some heavy service instruments, but recently presented active wall-press robot have more than one actuator, and multi-actuators will increase the control difficulty of the robot. The in-pipe robot system, according to existing moving modes and contact forms with pipe wall, can be classified into several classical forms, including pig type,[4,5,6] wheel type,[7,8,9,10] wall-press type,[11,12,13] walking type,[14,15] screw type,[16,17,18,19,20,21] inchworm type,[22,23,24,25] and swimming type.[26,27]
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