Design and Development of a Smart Vehicle for Inspection of In-Service Water Mains

Abstract

This paper describes the design of an underwater robotic vehicle which is based on the principle of screw-type motion. The robot is targeted for inspecting in-service water mains using its onboard sensors. The proposed robot can freely move along the basic configuration of pipelines such as horizontal or vertical. Moreover it can travel along reducers, and elbows. Various robotic pipeline inspection vehicles and different material specified non-destructive testing (NDT) techniques have been reviewed in this paper. While other in-pipe inspection robots only work in pipes with constant diameter the proposed robot can negotiate pipes whose diameter varies widely during the robot's course of motion. The main features of the proposed system are illustrated and some details about the mechanical structure and its dynamics are provided. A Hardware-in-loop (HIL) testbed with virtual reality capabilities is under investigation in order to prepare the final integration of the in-pipe robotic inspection system.