In-pipe inspection robot system with active steering mechanism

Development of In-pipe Inspection Robot

“…figure 1(c) shows the robot with caterpillars instead of wheels [5]. As shown in figure 1(d), the wall-press type, which has a number of advantages in climbing vertical pipelines, corresponds to the robot with a flexible mechanism for pressing the wall with whatever means they apply [6], [7]. As depicted in figure 1(e), the walking type possessing articulated legs can produce highly sophisticated motions [8]- [9].…”

In-pipe Robot with Active Steering Capability for Moving Inside of Pipelines

“…544, I-Tech, Vienna, Austria, EU, September 2007 2002; Suzumori et al, 1998;Kawaguchi et al, 1995;Suzumori, et al, 1999;Tsubouchi et al, 2000;Scholl et al, 2000;Mhramatsu et al, 2000;Ong et al, 2001;Choi & Ryew, 2002;Ryew et al, 2000;Roh et al, 2001;Roh et al, 2002;Roh et al, 2005;Schempf & Vradis, 2005;Schempf, 2002;Gamble & Wiesman, 1996). Fig.…”

“…As shown in Fig. 1(d), the wall press type, which has a number of advantages in climbing vertical pipelines, corresponds to the robot with the flexible mechanism for pressing the wall whatever means they apply with (Ryew et al, 2000;Nagano & Oka, 1998). As depicted in Fig.…”

“…2. The articulated type is the robot with active articulated joints physically similar to the snake or the annelid animal in nature which may be one of the most adequate mechanism, although its steering mechanism becomes complicated, for example steering joint (Scholl et al, 2000;Schempf & Vradis, 2005;Gamble & Wiesman, 1996) rubber gas actuated joint (Fukuda et al, 1989) and double active universal joint (Choi & Ryew, 2002;Ryew et al, 2000). These robots can move along branches.…”

“…In this chapter, we present a comprehensive work for moving inside pipelines with the inpipe robot, called the Multifunctional Robot for IN-pipe inspection (MRINSPECT) series, as shown in Fig. 3 (Choi & Ryew, 2002;Ryew et al, 2000;Roh et al, 2001;Roh et al, 2002;Roh et al, 2005). They have been developed for the inspection of urban gas pipelines with a nominal 8-in and 4-in inside diameter, respectively.…”