Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T10:56:23.952Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A simple and novel helical drive in-pipe robot

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2014

Yonghua Chen ,
Qingyou Liu  and
Tao Ren
Yonghua Chen*
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Qingyou Liu
Affiliation:
State Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation & School of Mechatronic Engineering, Southwest Petroleum University, Sichuan Province, P.R. China
Tao Ren
Affiliation:
State Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation & School of Mechatronic Engineering, Southwest Petroleum University, Sichuan Province, P.R. China
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

Pipeline grids of various size and material are pervasive in today's modern society. The frequent inspection and maintenance of such pipeline grids have presented a tremendous challenge. It is advocated that only advanced robot design embedded with intelligent electronics and control algorithms could perform the job. Given the ever increasing demands for intelligent in-pipe robots, various in-pipe drive mechanisms have been reported. One of the simplest is helical wheel drives that have only one degree of freedom. All previously reported in-pipe helical drives are based on independent passive wheels that are tilted an angle. One of the major problems of current helical wheel drives is their unstable traction force. In this paper, instead of allowing the wheels to rotate independently, they are synchronized by adding a timing belt. This small change will result in significant improvement which will be highlighted in this paper. In the proposed driving method, tracking force is analyzed together with a comprehensive set of traction force measurement experiments. Both analysis and experiments have shown that the proposed mechanism has great potential for in-pipe robot drive design.

Keywords

In-pipe robotHelical driveTraction forceTrack driveTiming belt
Type
Articles
Information
Robotica , Volume 33 , Issue 4 , May 2015 , pp. 920 - 932
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Roh, S. and Choi, H. C., “Differential-drive in-pipe robot for moving inside urban gas pipelines,” IEEE Trans. Robot. 21 (1), 1–17 (2005).Google Scholar
2. kim, Y. J., Yoon, K. H. and Park, Y. K., “Development of the Inpipe Robot for Various Size,” Proceedings of the IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics, Singapore (2009) pp. 1745–1749.Google Scholar
3. Okamoto, J., Adamowski, J. C., Tsuzuki, M. S. G., Buiochi, F. and Camerini, C. S., “Autonomous system for oil pipeline inspection,” Mechatronics 9, 731–743 (1999).Google Scholar
4. Ong, J. K., Kerr, D. and Bouazza-Marouf, K., “Design of a Semi-Autonomous Modular Robotic Vehicle for Gas Pipeline Inspection,” Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part I: Journal of Systems and Control Engineering, Vol. 217 (2003) pp. 109–120.Google Scholar
5. Roman, H. T., Pellegrino, B. A. and Sigrist, W. R., “Pipe crawling inspection robot: An overview,” IEEE Trans. Energy Convers. 8, 576–583 (1993).Google Scholar
6. Nagano, S. and Oka, Y., “Application of In-Pipe Visual Inspection Robot to Piping Internal Surface Lining,” Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on Robotics in Construction, Japan (1988) pp. 897–906.Google Scholar
7. Pfeiffer, F., Robmann, T. and Loffer, K., “Control of a Tube Crawling Machine,” Proceedings of the International Conference on Control of Oscillations and Chaos, Russia, Vol. 3 (2000) pp. 586–591.Google Scholar
8. Bertetto, A. M. and Ruggiu, M., “In-pipe inch-Worm Pneumatic Flexible Robot,” Proceedings of the IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics, Italy, Vol. 2 (2001) pp. 1226–1231.Google Scholar
9. Qiao, J., Shang, J. and Goldenberg, A., “Development of inchworm in-pipe robot based on self-locking mechanism,” IEEE/ASME Trans. Mechatronics, Digital Object Identifier 10, 1109/TMECH, (2012).Google Scholar
10. Anthierens, C., Ciftci, A. and Betemps, M., “Design of an Electro Pneumatic Micro Robot for In-Pipe Inspection,” Proceedings of the IEEE International Symposium on Industrial Electronics, Slovenia, Vol. 2 (1999), pp. 968–972.Google Scholar
11. Horodinca, M., Doroftei, I., Mignon, E. and Preumont, A., “A Simple Architecture For In-pipe Inspection Robots,” Proceedings of the International Colloquium on Autonomous and Mobile Systems, Magdeburg, Germany (2002) pp. 61–65.Google Scholar
12. Kakogawa, A. and Ma, S., “Mobility of an In-pipe Robot with Screw Drive Mechanism inside Curved Pipes,” Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics, Tianjin, China (2010) pp. 1530–1535.Google Scholar
13. Kakogawa, A. and Ma, S., “Experimental Verification of Analytical Torques Enabling a Screw Drive In-pipe Robot to Pass Through Bend Pipes,” Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics, Phuket, Thailand (2011) pp. 1742–1747.Google Scholar
14. Kakogawa, A. and Ma, S., “Stiffness design of Spring for a screw drive in-pipe robot to pass through curved pipes and vertical straight pipes,” Adv. Robot. 26 (3–4), 253–276 (2012).Google Scholar
15. Fukushima, H. F., Satomura, S., kawai, T., Tanaka, M., Kamegama, T. and Matsuno, F., “Modeling and control of a snake-like robot using the screw-drive mechanism,” IEEE Trans. Robot. 28 (3), 541–554 (2012).Google Scholar
16. Wong, J. Y., Huang, W., “Wheels vs tracks – A fundamental evaluation from the traction perspective,” J. Terramechanics 43, 27–42 (2006).Google Scholar
17. Bowden, F. P. and Tabor, D., The Friction and Lubrication of Solids, Oxford Classics Series Edition (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001).Google Scholar