Design and Development of a Snake-Robot for Pipeline Inspection

Abstract

Robots are machines which performs mechanical and repetitive tasks with little to no interaction of human. Robots are designed to remove human factor from dangerous work places and to act in an inaccessible environment. When it comes to pipe line inspection, snake robots can easily access wide range of pipelines that includes pipes in the oil industries (thick diameter) to the sewer pipers (small diameter). This project focuses on the design, development and working of a snake robot (Slyder) which is inspired from real snakes. The snake robot consists of compact links (brackets) which allows Slyder to maintain smooth movements. Slyder is designed to inspect the pipelines and to check for damages or blockages. The most effective movement pattern such as; crawling and slithering are implemented on this snake robot. Servo motors, wireless cam, Arduino Nano and remote control are some of the components that were used to develop this prototype. To make the snake robot function like a real snake, it is constructed using many brackets. To cut down the cost, these brackets are designed on Fusion 360 and 3D printed using PLA material. Each bracket has a servo motor that enables the robot to have various degrees of freedom for different gaits. The modular design gives the robot flexibility to reach different territories and ability to move around in complex environments.