Development of Differentially Driven Inpipe Inspection Robot for Underground Gas Pipeline

摘要

Up to now a wide variety of researches on inpipe inspection robots have been introduced, but it still seems to be difficult to construct a robot providing mobility sufficient to navigate inside the complicated configuration of underground pipelines. This paper introduces a robot called MRINSPECT IV(Multifunctional Robotic Crawler for inpipe inSPECTion IV) for the inspection of urban gas pipelines with a nominal 4-inch inside diameter. The proposed robot can freely move along the basic configuration of pipelines such as along horizontal or vertical pipelines. Moreover it can travel along reducers, elbows, and steer in the branches by modulating the speeds of driving modules. Especially, its capability for steering in tile three-dimensional pipeline configuration has a competative edge over the other ones and provides excellent mobility in navigation. Its critical points in the design and construction are introduced and results of experiments are given.