A flat pipeline inspection robot with two wheel chains

Abstract

This paper presents a new pipeline inspection robot that has multiple sensors for inspection of 80-100mm pipelines. The special feature of this robot is realization of driving and steering capability by using only two wheel chains. Compared to popularly employed pipeline robots using three wheel chains, the new design allows simple robot control and easy user interface, specially at T-branch. As another advantage, the flat shape of this robot allows mounting additional sensors on the both sides of the robot. The kinematics and three control modes are described. Finally, the performance of this robot system is verified by experimentation. ? 2011 IEEE.