2012 IEEE Conference on Sustainable Utilization and Development in Engineering and Technology (STUDENT) Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman,

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 6 - 9 October 2012

Development of In-pipe Inspection Robot:

Review

Iszmir Nazmi Ismail, Adzly Anuar, Khairul Salleh Mohamed Sahari, Mohd Zafri Baharuddin, Muhammad Fairuz

Centre for Advanced Mechatronics and Robotics Universiti Tenaga Nasional Jalan IKRAM-UNITEN 43000 Kajang, Selangor, MALAYSIA.

Abstract- This paper reviewed several previous papers on work that have been done on the development of in-pipe inspection robot for the last 20 years. By sorting the types of the inspection robots they can be divided into several groups according to their locomotion. Each prototype has its own advantages and disadvantages depending on its design requirements and purpose of inspection. The prototypes have been tested in several experiments in order to verify its functionality and efficiency of inspection task. Some of the researchers ran simulations to validate the kinematic and modeling the mechanism of their own prototype. Developing in-pipe inspection robot can overcome the issues of human factor in labour intensive or dangerous work and also to act in inaccessible environment during repair and maintaining inside the pipeline.

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Figure 1: Types of in-pipe inspection robot [2] II. DEVELOPED IN-PIPE INSPECTION ROBOT

I.

INTRODUCTION

Robotics is one of the fastest growing engineering fields of today. Robots are designed to remove the human factor from labour intensive or dangerous work and also to act in inaccessible environment. The inspection of pipes may be relevant for improving security and efficiency in industrial plants. These specific operations as inspection, maintenance, cleaning etc. are expensive, thus the application of robots appears to be one of the most attractive solutions. The pipelines are the major tools for transporting of drinkable water, effluent water, fuel oils and gas. A lot of troubles caused by piping networks aging, corrosion, cracks, and mechanical damages are possible. So, continuously inspecting, maintaining and repairing are strongly demanded [1]. With a considerable history behind the development in robotics, in-pipe robots can be classified into seven different sub categories, based on their applications. These are named as pig type robot, wheel type robot, caterpillar type robot, wall-press robot, walking type robot, inchworm type robot and screw type robot [2-3] (Figure 1). In section II, a brief explanation about several prototypes of in-pipe inspection robot is being discussed. The discussion covers the mechanism, the control method, the driving instrument as well the integration with inspection device.

Numbers of related papers about in-pipe inspection robots have been reviewed. The robots are divided into categories according to their types. A brief description about each one is given below.
A.

Helical / Screw Type

This prototype is inspired by the motion of spirochetes, a type of bacteria. It was developed by M. Kurata et al. [4]. This prototype is driven by motors and pulleys. Figure 2 show the structure of the prototype.

Figure 2: Structure of the prototype developed by M. Kurata et aI. [4]

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The advantages of helical rotation mobile robot are: (1) The robot can be miniaturized because its mechanism is simple. (2) The robot is easily sealed off because it does not have any unlimited rotary mechanism such as a wheel. (3) The helical rotating motion is unlikely to damage the inner wall of a pipe because the robot does not drag its body. (4) The robot can move in a flexible tube because its body is flexible. (5) The robot does not block the flow in a pipe because it has space inside its helical body through which fluids can flow. (6) The robot can adapt to changes in pipe diameter because the diameter of its helical body can be changed. The simultaneous rolling motion produced by the entire body allows the prototype to avoid dragging its body along the inner surface of the pipe. In addition the contact area is wider than other types of robots which may dissipate contact force and allow the robot to generate a propulsive force with its entire body. The second prototype is SPRING, which is developed as a piping inspection robot that can freely travel through gas pipes by Osuka et al. [5]. Results obtained through repeated experiments reveal two main problems. One is that SPRING stops after rapid deceleration when approaching a valve in the piping segment. This was due to the fore fins being blocked by the wall of the valve because SPRING was not deformed enough. In order to solve this problem it seems necessary to redesign the stiffuess of the body, the taper rate of the body as well as the shape and arrangement of the fins. Another problem was that the tires slip causing SPRING to become stuck when entering an elbow in the piping. This is due to the tires coming out of contact with the wall because the angle between the body surface and the wall is greater when running in the elbow. In addition the resilience of the spring which presses the tires against the wall decreases because the cross sectional area of the body became larger when running in the elbow. This problem can be solved by redesigning the stiffness, body length, tire shape and tire arrangement. Figure 3 shows a prototype developed by K. Osuka et al. [5]

B. Inchworm Type

K. H. Yoon et al. have developed a prototype of pipe inspection robot actuated by using compressed air [6]. One of the requirements the power source must be high temperature-safe and high pressure-safe. Secondly, the robot must climb the vertical pipe without slipping. The other requirement is that the robot must be able to enter an entrance of 100 mm in diameter and then expand up to 300 mm in diameter. To fulfill the first requirement, a pneumatic system is chosen as the power source because of possible existence of residual high temperature or high pressure. For the second requirement an inchworm mechanism is selected due to its vertical-climbing capability. A two-bar-link mechanism is adapted for the third requirement because of easy expansion and contraction in radial direction. The concept is like folding and unfolding an umbrella. The size of the whole structure can be changed according to the change in length of link. Figure 4 shows the motion of the prototype moving forward developed by K. H Yoon et al. [6].
1 Cycle Moving Distance

Figure 4(a) Shows prototype of pipe inspection robot actuated by using compressed air and Figure [6]

Figure 4(b) Shows its movement sequence in a vertical pipe. [6]

Wall-press Type

Figure 3: Prototype of SPRING robot by K. Osuka et al. [5]

Most of the wall-press type robots use spring tension to press the inside wall of pipelines. However they have many restrictions to control the wall-pressing force [7-9]. A new inspection robot for pipelines with large variable diameters is

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needed to overcome this problem. D. W. Kim et al. proposed an active pipe inspection robot with the wall-pressing force adjustment using DC motor [10]. It is developed for long distance inspection of sea-water pipelines such as horizontal linear pipelines and slope linear pipelines with large variable diameter from 600 mm to 800 mm. According to its mechanical feature the robot consists of two modules which are the driving module and the control module. The driving module has three pantograph-type links spaced at 120 with three caterpillar track wheels. Implementing this design makes it possible to realize the adaption to pipe diameter and the adjustment of wall pressing force. On the other hand, the control module is built up of a micro controller, motor driver and sensor interface. Figure 5 shows a prototype developed by Kim et at. [10].

different diameters. The robot is designed to deal with diameter of 125 mm to 180 mm. The total length of the robot is 300 mm and the weight is 840 grams. The robot can be powered using 6 to 12 V. The structural material employs mainly aluminum and ABS plastic resin. In order to reduce the weight and the size of the robot each leg system has only a motor that controls the moving speed of the legs. The fore and rear leg system has motor respectively as to change the contracting angles of the legs. The fore and rear legs are connected in order to be parallel to each other in their mutual positions. On the other hand the opening and closing angles of the legs can be kept at the same value by using worm gears. The front and the back parts of the body each have a joint at which there is a RC servo motor. A DC motor is also installed in the body so that the body can be twisted 360 degrees at a pipe branch. A CCD camera is installed at the front part of the fore leg system to detect and evaluate the defects of the pipe. Y. S. Kwon et al. developed a new pipeline inspection robot designed for inspection of pipelines with 100 mm diameter with a linkage-type mechanical clutch [12]. This robot has three powered wheel chains each of which has a mechanical clutch. The mechanical clutch is designed by using a parallel linkage mechanism. In the last 10 years, differential-drive type mechanisms have been studied intensively [13-15]. The differential-drive type usually has three powered chains. The robot is able to go through elbows and T-branches by controlling the speed of each chain independently. Furthermore, this robot has a large folding range compared to wheel type, screw-type, and PIG-type robots. In order to apply the prototype to real environment, some practical aspects such as easy user interface, safety, water proof, and retrieval function should be taken into account. The retrieval function is crucial because the robot working inside the pipeline can be out of order at any time. The concept of clutch is a good solution for realization of the retrieval functions if, for example the robot is stuck in the pipeline during operation. Figure 7
shows the robot developed by Y.S. Kwon et al.

Figure 5: A Prototype Developed by D. W. Kim et al. [10]

H. O. Lim et al. have developed a wall-press pipe inspection robot which had a structure that consisted of fore leg system, a rear leg system and a body. Figure 6 shows the pipe inspection robot developed by H. O. Lim et al. [11].

CCD

carner:!

[12].

Fore It'g system

Rear leg system

Figure 6: Photo of pipe inspection robot developed by H. O Lim et a! [II]

From Figure 6, the robot is composed of three fore and rear legs. The legs are arranged at 120 degrees to each other to move inside various pipe diameters. A CCO camera is installed at the front part of the fore leg system to inspect pipes. The robot is able to move freely inside pipes of

Figure 7: An inspection robot with a mechanical clutch developed by Y.S. Kwon et at. [12]

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As for the whole system it consists of a control box and a robotic device. The length of the robot is 80 mm and the exterior diameter is 100 mm. The robot's mechanism can be operated in two different modes, which are the driving mode that represents the robot in motion, and the retrieval mode which implies the state of retrieving the robot to the entrance location. Realization of the retrieval function is essential because it removes the disadvantages of magnetic brakes such as slippage, limited power transmission and limited size. [t can be done by driving the robotic device using three wheel-drive motors and the steering motion at the elbow.
D. W h e e l T y p e

recovery of lost parts and sampling of scaling from pipes. The camera and the hands can be rotated around the pipe axis by a pneumatic wobble motor, a newly developed high-torque micro motor. The robot consists of flexible rubber link that bends passively to allow curved pipes to be negotiated when robot in motion. The flexible link has a planetary wheel mechanism at each end. These mechanisms have essentially the same structure, but the number of wheels is different, as shown in Figure 8 where the mechanism at the front has fewer wheels to allow the rotation of camera and hands. Each partition has a set of wheels, an electromagnetic motor, and a mechanical paradox planetary gear drive. The function is to drive the robot forward or backward. S.A. Fjerdingen et al. presented a design and implementation of an articulated transport mechanism with active wheels and joints for locomotion in pipe structures with varying dimensions and complex structural configuration [20]. Before this, several designs have been proposed for snake-like robot called ACM III which was developed by Hirose in 1972 [21]. The ACM III was equipped with passive wheels. Sinus-like movements of the robot body were used to obtain the necessary propulsive force for propelling the snake robot forward. Other snake robot design with passive wheels has also been proposed such as that by Liljeback and Transeth [22-23]. Besides that, several snake robots without wheels have been developed by Ye and Togawa. However none of these designs are directly applicable to pipe inspections since they do not consider the constrained and longitudinal nature of pipelines [24-25]. Figure 9 shows PIKo that been developed by S.A. Fjerdingen et al. [20]

Wheel type robot is similar to the plain mobile robot and several researches have been reported on mobile mechanisms for use in pipes with smaller than 1 inch inner diameter. Some are driven by piezoelectric actuators [16-17] and electromagnetic actuators [18]. Nevertheless, these robots are still at the research stage which means certain challenges still need to be solved before they become practical. For example those microrobots for small pipes have low pulling force and have difficulty negotiating curved pipes or vertical pipes. Furthermore, commercial charged-coupled device (CCD) cameras are too big to mount on these robots. K. Suzomori et al. have developed a micro pipeinspection robot for 1 inch pipelines that offers good mobility and has functionality suitable for practical use [19]. The prototype carries a 410 000 pixel color CCO camera provides enough resolution to locate 25 11m micro-cracks in the internal surface of a pipe and has a dual-hand system with six degrees of freedom for manipulating and recovering small objects. Figure 8 shows a micro inspection robot developed by K. Suzomori et al. [19].

Figure 9: The pipe inspection robot PlI<o developed by S. A. Fjerdingen et al. [20]

Planetary w eel mechansm

\\;;: \ Pneumatic wobble

ReXlble link EIet:tromag:ne1ic IJl()tor

Figure 8: Configuration of Micro Inspection Robot [19]

The robot has dimensions of 23 mm in external diameter, 110 mm in length and weighs 16 g. Mounted on the front of the robot are a TV camera and a dual micro hand. The functions of these items are to enable observations of the pipe surface,

For the PIKo prototype a novel design for both measuring contact forces between the robot and its environment and the bilateral constraint forces between adjacent robot modules are presented. The robots mechanism consist of series of identical modules interconnected by two rotational joints on both sides of the modules which the main principle of actuation stem from more generic snake-like robots [20]. Wheels at each module give forward and backward propulsion and all degrees of freedom are actuated as opposed to many snake-robot designs with passive wheels. Only five modules have been connected as they are sufficient for horizontal and vertical motion. For horizontal movement the concept is similar to a movement of train on tracks while for the vertical movement the concept is to use the flexibility of the interconnected joints to push against two

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opposing sides of the pipe at the same time moving forward by propulsion from the wheels. It is verified from the experimental results that the transport mechanism is capable of both horizontal turning motion and vertical climbing inside a pipe segment.
E.

Table I: Comparisons between different types of in-pipe inspection robots Type Helical/Screw

Advantages The robot is easily sealed off Does not damage the inner wall since it does not drag its body Flexible movement Does not block the flow of fluid inside pipe Adaptable to changes of inner pipe diameter Has wider contact area than other types of robot which may dissipate contact force to generate propulsive force Adaptable to changes of inner pipe diameter Efficient to inspect vertical pipe as it exerts great grip force to the inner wall of pipe Can operate both on plane and in liquid [28] Adaptable to changes of inner pipe diameter Simple mechanism I f track is used it can avoid getting stuck in holes Suitable for long range inspection Energy efficient Can carry heavy load Moves quick because wheels provide highly efficient propulsion Simple mechanism I f track is used it can avoid getting stuck in holes Suitable for long range inspection Energy eflicient Can carry heavy load Less tendency of slipping Able to climb vertical pipes and pipes of any inclination Causes minor damage to inner surface of pipe since it has small contact area CONCLUSION

Disadvantages Complex mechanism Tendency to get jammed inside the pipe if the mechanism doesn't work properly

Walking/Leg Type

The paper reported further development of the tube crawling robot "MORITZ", which was built at the Technical University of Munich by Zagler et at. [26]. This robot can climb through pipes of different inclinations. It is improved so that it can also manage tube junctions. Rossman built a crawler that is able to crawl in any inclination from horizontal up to vertical pipes. Figure 10 shows T. Rossman et at. pipe-crawling prototype [27].

Inchworm

High drag force may damage the inner surface of pipe Difficult to move in bending pipes

Wall-press

High friction force may damage the inner surface of pipe Wheel might stuck if there is hole inside the pipe High tendency of slipping High friction force may damage the inner surface of pipe Wheel might stuck if there is hole inside the pipe High tendency of slipping

Wheel Figure 10: Pipe crawling robot "MORITZ" developed by T. Rossman et al. [27]

The robot has eight legs arranged in the form of two stars. Each four time are attached to a central body which lies on a plane that contains the longitudinal axis of the crawler. These two planes are called leg planes. Each leg in the leg plane has two active joints and is driven by DC-motor. Its axes of rotation are orthogonal to the leg plane so that it has full planar mobility. The legs are mounted to the central body with an additional passive joint, which allows compensation for small displacements normal to the leg plane. The crawler has a length of about 0. 75 m and is able to walk in pipes with a diameter of 60 cm t070 cm. For each of the eight legs, the lengths of the first and the second segments are 15 cm and 16 cm respectively. Friction forces are generated by spreading out the four legs against the pipe wall when moving the crawler which can carry its weight of 20 kg and an additional load. III.
DISCUSSION

WalkinglLeg

Complex mechanism Leg might get stuck if there is hole inside the pipe

IV.

All prototypes that have been discussed have the same general objective, which is to do inspection inside pipelines. However, each of them has its own characteristics which adhere to its specific design requirements. Table 1 shows the comparisons between the different types of in-pipe inspection robots.

Many researches and developments have been done in the in-pipe robot work field. Each design that has been produced is based on the design requirements set by the developer in order to achieve their objective in building the prototype. Generally an in-pipe inspection robot consists of the main body, driven part, control device and inspection equipment. Based on the review it can be said for pipes

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having large internal diameter ranging from 50 cm to 100 cm, a walking and wall-press type inspection robot is the best mechanism to inspect for that size of pipe. For small and medium internal diameter pipes ranging from 10 cm to 40 cm, the wheel, inchworm and the helical type inspection robot is suitable to use for inspecting that kind size of pipe. As for further work, most of the researchers are working on optimizing the design in terms of power usage, the size of the robot and minimizing the complexity of the robot mechanism. Looking at the current development of the robots, walking and helical type inspection robots seems to have a brighter future in having significant improvement in terms of the exterior design and controlling mechanism. V.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

[14]

s. G. Roh, D. W. Kim, 1. S. Lee, H P. Moon, and H R. Choi, "Modularized in-pipe robot capable of selective navigation inside of pipelines," in Froc. iEEE/RSJ into Con] intel!. Robots Syst., 2008, pp.1724-1729. y. S. Kwon and B.-1. Yi, "The kinematic modeling and optimal paramerization of an omni-directional pipeline robot," in Proc. IEEE Int. Con/. Robot. Autom., 2009, pp. 1389-1394.

[15] [16]

T. Idogaki et aI., "Characteristics of piezoelectric locomotive mechanism for an in-pipe micro inspection machine," in Froc. iEEE 6th into Symp.Micro Machine and Human Sciences, 1995, pp. 193-198. T. Matsumoto et at., "A prototype model of micro mobile machine with piezoelectric driving force actuator," in Proc. IEEE 5th int. Symp. Micro Machine and Human Sciences, 1994, pp. 4754. S. Iwashita, I. Hayashi, N. Iwatsuki, and K. Nakamura, "Development of in-pipe operation micro robots," in Proc. IEEE 5th Int. Symp. Micro Machine and Human SCiences, 1994, pp. 4145. K. Suzumori" T. Miyagawa, M. Kimura" Y. Hasegawa, "Micro Inspection Robot for I-in Pipes", IEEE/ASME Transactions Mechatronics, Volume: 4, Issue: 3. 1999, pp. 286 - 292. SA Fjerdingen, P. Liljeback" A.A. Transeth" "A Snake-like Robot for Internal Inspection of Complex Pipe Structure (PIKo)", intelligent Robots and Systems, 2009. iROS 2009. 2009, pp. 5665 - 5671. S. Hirose, Biologically Inspired Robots: Snake-Like Locomotors and Manipulators. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. P. Liljeback, 0. Stavdahl, and A. Beitnes, "SnakeFighter development of a water hydraulic fire fighting snake robot", in Froc. IEEE into Con] Control, Automation, Robotics, and Vision, December 2006, pp. 1-6. A. A. Transeth, R. I. Leine, C. Glocker, K. Y. Pettersen, and Liljeback, "Snake robot obstacle aided locomotion: Modeling, simulations, and experiments", iEEE Trans. Robot., vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 88-104, 2008. C. Ye, S. Ma, B. Li, H Liu, and H Wang, "Development of a 3D snake-like robot: Perambulator-ii", in Int. Con/. on Mechatroncis and Automation, August 2007, pp. 117-122. K. Togawa, M. Mori, and S. Hirose, "Study on Three Dimensional Active Cord Mechanism: Development of ACM R2", in Froc. IEEE/RSJ into Con] Intelligent Robots and Systems, vol. 3, November 2000, pp.2242-2247. A. Zagler, F. Pfeifler, ""MORITZ" a Pipe Crawler for Tube Junctions" Robotics and Automation, 2003. Proceedings. ICRA '03. IEEE international Conference on Volume: 3,2003 , pp. 2954 - 2959. T . Rossmann,. F. Pfeiffer :Control of a Tube Crawling Robot, Proc. of the European Mechanics Colloquium Euromech 375, Lehrstuhl B fAurMechanik, ed. , Munich, Germany, 1998. H. Lu, J. Zhu, Z. Lin, Y. Guo," An Inchworm Mobile Robot Using Electromagnetic Linear Actuator", Mechatronics (2009).

[17]

[18]

The authors wish to thank TNB Research Sdn. Bhd. for supporting this work.

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