Development of an Inline Robot for Water Quality Monitoring

Kazeminasab, Saber; Aghashahi, Mohsen; Banks, M. Katherine

doi:10.1109/icrae50850.2020.9310805

Cited by 11 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…In Table 1, the specifications of the robot are listed. More details on the design and prototyping can be found in [43,44]. There is a notion of resilient machine that is first coined in [45] and formulates the requirements for manufacturing a machine that is reliable and robust against uncertainties and disturbances.…”

Section: The Robotic System Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, this effect is small; an increase of 400% in line pressure in our simulation, results in a 27% decrease in drag force that means, there is no meaningful correlation between the line pressure and the drag force. However, the main effect of the line pressure is on the strength of the robot's components and we addressed this in our design in [44].…”

Section: Effect Of Line Pressure On the Robotmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Towards long-distance inspection for in-pipe robots in water distribution systems with smart motion facilitated by particle filter and multi-phase motion controller

Kazeminasab

Banks

2022

Intel Serv Robotics

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Incident in water distribution systems (WDS) cause water loss and water contamination that requires the utility managers to assess the condition of pipelines in a timely manner. However, pipelines are long and access to all parts of it is a challenging task; current in-pipe robots have the limitations of short-distance inspection and inability to operate in-service networks. In this work, we improve the design of our previously developed in-pipe robot and analyze the effect of line pressure and relative velocity on the robot during operation with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. An extreme scenario for robot operation is defined and we estimate the minimum inspection distance for the robot with one turn of battery charge that is 5400m. A multiphase motion controller is proposed that ensures reliable motion at straight and non-straight configurations of pipeline and also stabilized configuration with zero velocity at junctions. We also propose a localization and navigation method based on particle filtering and combine it with the proposed multi-phase motion controller. In this method, the map of the operation is provided to the robot and the robot localizes itself based on the map and the particle filtering method. Furthermore, the robot navigates different configurations of pipelines by switching between different phases of the motion controller algorithm that is performed by the particle filter algorithm. The experiment and simulation results show that the robot along with the navigation shows a promising solution towards long-distance inspection of pipelines by in-pipe robots.

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Section: The Robotic System Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Effect Of Line Pressure On the Robotmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards long-distance inspection for in-pipe robots in water distribution systems with smart motion facilitated by particle filter and multi-phase motion controller

Kazeminasab

Banks

2022

Intel Serv Robotics

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“…Each actuator module comprises a gear motor, a motor cover, moldable glue, and a wheel. More detail on the design, characterization, and fabrication can be found in our previous work [20]. The central part is designed to locate the sensing, control, drive, wireless, and power units of the robot.…”

Section: Robot Design and Characterization A Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Localization and Navigation Method for an In-Pipe Robot in Water Distribution System Through Wireless Control Towards Long-Distance Inspection

Kazeminasab

Banks

2021

IEEE Access

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In this paper, we propose an operation procedure for our previously developed in-pipe robotic system that is used for water quality monitoring in water distribution systems (WDS). The proposed operation procedure synchronizes a developed wireless communication system that is suitable for harsh environments of soil, water, and rock with a multi-phase control algorithm. The new ''wireless control algorithm'' facilitates ''smart navigation'' and ''near real-time wireless data transmission'' during operation for our in-pipe robot in WDS. The smart navigation enables the robot to pass through different configurations of the pipeline with long inspection capability with a battery in which is mounted on the robot. To this end, we have divided the operation procedure into five steps that assign a specific motion control phase and wireless communication task to the robot. We describe each step and the algorithm associated with that step in this paper. The proposed robotic system defines the configuration type in each pipeline with the pre-programmed pipeline map that is given to the robot before the operation and the wireless communication system. The wireless communication system includes some relay nodes that perform bi-directional communication in the operation procedure. The developed wireless robotic system along with operation procedure facilitates localization and navigation for the robot toward long-distance inspection in WDS. INDEX TERMSIn-pipe robots, wireless control algorithm, smart navigation, water quality monitoring, water distribution systems.

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“…3) Gear-motor: We also selected the customized gear-motor based on the CFD work in our previous work [39]. The gearmotor in the SmartCrawler provides sufficient torque to tackle the drag force and move the robot in pipelines.…”

Section: Characterizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

SmartCrawler: An In-pipe Robotic System with Novel Low-frequency Wireless Communication Setup in Water Distribution Systems

Kazeminasab¹,

Banks²

2021

Preprint

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Water Distribution Systems (WDS) are critical infrastructures that deliver potable water to residential areas. Water quality monitoring is one of the requirements for utility managers to ensure the health of the water. However, it is challenging to access all parts of the WDS since they are long and comprise different configurations. In this paper, we propose a size-adaptable in-pipe robot so-called “SmartCrawler”. We develop two-phase control algorithm that enables reliable motion in different configurations of pipelines. The controller in phase 1 stabilizes the robot in the straight paths and tracks the desired velocity with high-level linear quadratic regulator (LQR) and low-level proportional-integral-derivative (PID) based controllers. The controller in phase 2 enables the robot to have reliable change of direction in the non-straight paths. The performance of the two-phase controller is evaluated with experimental and simulation results. Wireless underground communication is a challenging task for underground applications. To facilitate wireless communication, we propose an active radio frequency identification (RFID) based communication working in 434MHz carrier frequency and evaluate its performance with experimental results. At the end of this work, we design the printed circuit board (PCB) for the SmartCrawler. The simulation and the experimental results prove the proposed robotic system can be used for in-pipe missions where wireless communication is needed to communicate with the robot during operation. <br>

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Development of an Inline Robot for Water Quality Monitoring

Cited by 11 publications

References 13 publications

Towards long-distance inspection for in-pipe robots in water distribution systems with smart motion facilitated by particle filter and multi-phase motion controller

Towards long-distance inspection for in-pipe robots in water distribution systems with smart motion facilitated by particle filter and multi-phase motion controller

A Localization and Navigation Method for an In-Pipe Robot in Water Distribution System Through Wireless Control Towards Long-Distance Inspection

SmartCrawler: An In-pipe Robotic System with Novel Low-frequency Wireless Communication Setup in Water Distribution Systems

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