Development and investigation of the vibration-driven in-pipe robot

Abstract

Vibratory machines are widely used for monitoring and cleaning various tubes, pipelines, intestines, vessels, etc. The problems of ensuring the prescribed dynamic characteristics of such equipment and simultaneous optimizing the power consumption are currently being solved by numerous researchers. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the locomotion characteristics of the novel vibration-driven design of the pipeline inspecting and cleaning robot actuated by an electromagnetic exciter and equipped with the size-adapting and self-locking mechanisms. The research methodology consists of four main stages: an overview of the enhanced robot design; constructing its dynamic diagram and deriving the differential equations of motion; performing the numerical modeling with the help of the Mathematica software and studying the robot’s kinematic characteristics; conducting virtual experiments by computer simulation of the robot motion in the SolidWorks software. The research results present the time dependencies of the robot’s displacement, speed, and acceleration at different working regimes (excitation forces, disturbing frequencies, etc.). The novelty of the performed investigations consists in substantiating the efficient locomotion conditions of the enhanced vibration-driven in-pipe robot. Further investigations can be focused on developing the full-scale laboratory prototype of the robot and conducting experimental studies. The obtained research results can be interesting for engineers and scientists who deal with similar vibration-driven pipeline robots.