Published by : International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT)

http://www.ijert.org ISSN: 2278-0181

Vol. 6 Issue 06, June - 2017

Pipe Inspection and Declogging Robot

Chandan. R. Vishakh.V. S
Assistant professor UG student
Department of Mechanical Engineering Department of Mechanical Engineering
Dr.Ambedkar institute of Technology Dr.Ambedkar institute of Technology
Bangalore, India Bangalore, India

Wednse.C.A. Vishal Singh

UG student UG student
Department of Mechanical Engineering Department of Mechanical Engineering
Dr.Ambedkar institute of Technology Dr.Ambedkar institute of Technology
Bangalore, India Bangalore, India

Abstract - Pipeline transports oil and gases for far distances. and gas supply in our contemporary society. Also pipes are
Routine maintenance is necessary for these pipes which avoid widely used in chemical industries and in gulf countries for
any abnormality things such as, crack, leakage or deposit. carrying petrol, diesel, oil etc. But after some years these
Although it’s less common, corrosion also can occur on the pipes get damaged and defects are occurring in pipe. If the
inside surface of the pipe and reduces the strength of the pipe. If defects in the pipe are caused by rust and nature calamity, it
crack goes undetected and becomes severe, the pipe can leak is difficult to find out the defects and the place of the defects,
and, in rare cases, fail catastrophically. Extensive efforts are and also there is great amount of loss. Thus scheduled
made to mitigate corrosion. Hence it is important to maintain it inspection must be done. If we decide to do this inspection
safely and economically, therefore the robot becomes most
manually then large amount of time, effort and labor is
useful product available for this purpose. Automated inspection
of the inner surface of a pipe can be achieved by a mobile robot.
necessary to grub up the pipes that are buried in the ground.
In the present project, trial has been made to design the robot in If the robot can inspect inside the pipes, fast and accurate
such a way that it moves with lower pace, which is highly examination will be able to be done at low cost.
necessary for the function of inspection. The wheels of the robot
are designed in such a way so that it can traverse inside a curved II. PROBLEM DEFINITION
surface of the pipe without slipping .it is also designed such that Recently, many industries use different diameter pipes for
it is totally automated and controlled by Smartphone using different applications, like to carry chemicals, high pressure
Bluetooth. steam gases and water. Hence there may be chances of
problems like corrosion, cracking, dents, metal losses and
Keywords— Pipeline; Crack; Leakages; Corrosion; leakages. These problems are inevitable. The blockage inside
Declogging; Smartphone; Bluetooth.
the pipe can reduce the efficiency of the water flow. The
conventional method is very difficult, tiring and expensive.
I. INTRODUCTION These problems are not only seen in industry but also in
Robotics is one of the fastest growing engineering fields houses and power plants. To overcome this, the pipe can be
of today. It designed to reduce the human factor labor inspected with the help of “PIPE INSPECTION ROBOT”.
intensive or potential risks and to work in inaccessible
environment. Robots are more common now than ever before
and it is not necessarily only using in the heavy production III. OBJECTIVES
industries. Pipeline transports the oil, gases, and other for far The objectives of the project are ,
distances. The routine maintenance is necessary for these  To traverse a robot inside a pipe with forward and
pipes which avoid any abnormality things such as, crack, backward motion and declogg the blockage.
leakage or deposit. That’s why it was important to use safely
 To design the robot to move in pipes of diameter eight
and economically thing, therefore the robot becoming most
inches and above.
attractive product available. The major companies supplying
 To build a fully autonomous pipeline cleaning robot,
and maintaining the oil pipelines faces many problems and
which can be controlled using Smartphone.
difficulties when people want to inspect or check the oil
pipeline and spent huge money on this process. During the  To construct a robot that can minimize the mud and
maintenance of these pipelines, the employee’s exposure to scales inside the pipe.
the risk of choking. Moreover the companies also incurred IV. DESIGN OF THE ROBOT
more maintenance cost also staff and labor costs. And more
Design consists of application of scientific principle,
often they did not able to find any faults in pipeline so they
technical information, and imagination for development of
lose money, time and human effort. Hence, it is proposed to
design a simple pipeline inspection robot to inspect pipeline new mechanism to perform specific function with maximum
for any malfunctions and to perform maintenance work. This economy and efficiency. Hence careful design approach has
robot may solve the problems of companies facing for to be adopted. The pipe inspection robot has been designed
inspection and we can implement it. Many kinds of pipes are such that, it can fit inside 8 inch or greater diameter pipes
being utilized to construct important lifelines such as water easily. The shape of the body of the robot is kept similar to a

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Published by : International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT)
http://www.ijert.org ISSN: 2278-0181
Vol. 6 Issue 06, June - 2017

pipe, so that it can easily traverse inside the pipe, without any
unnecessary friction. A declogging system has been designed
in front of the robot, which has five circularly placed blades
on a turbine like structure. The wheels are placed not
orthogonally but at an angle of 60 degree with the bas , so
that it provides necessary contact surface for the locomotion
of the robot. The pipe inspection robot was designed using
Catia V5 software as shown in the figure.

Fig 2. Application used for control and monitoring

VI. CONSTRUCTION OF THE ROBOT

a. Body of the robot
The body of the robot is made up of Galvanized Iron
sheet (GI sheet), with zinc coating which provides resistance
against corrosion and rusting. It is designed in such a way,
that it can accommodate inside 8inch and above pipes. The
GI sheet provides the best strength to weight ratio, which
reduces the overall weight of the robot. Galvanizing is a
process of coating iron or steel with zinc in order to provide
greater protection against corrosion for the iron or steel base.
b. Declogging system
A declogging system has been installed at the front of the
robot. It consists of a turbine and 5 stainless steel blades have
been fixed at the front of the turbine. The whole system is
driven by a motor, fixed with a help of a clamp to the base of
the robot.
The function of the declogging system is to cut through
the blockages in the pipe. When a blockage is detected in the
pipe by camera, the turbine is switched on using the
controlling Smartphone the blades cuts the blockage and
clears the way for the fluid water to flow.
Fig 1. Geometrical model of the robot

V. INSPECTION
The main function of the pipe inspection robot is
inspection of the pipe. It checks for various defects such as
dents, cracks leakages, and blockages inside the pipe. This
function is carried out by installing a Smartphone on the
robot. The Smartphone has 5 mega pixels of camera which
captures the inside of the pipe and by using wifi sends the
live video to another Smartphone which is used to control the
robot. The Smartphone which is used to control the robot,
receives the video and by seeing that video, the robot can be
controlled. The 5 megapixels of camera gives a fine clarity of
image and the flashlight on the Smartphone is required to Fig 3. Declogging System
provide light during video streaming.

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Vol. 6 Issue 06, June - 2017

c. Battery
An electric battery is a device consisting of one or more
electrochemical cells with external connections provided to
power electrical devices such as flashlights, smart phones,
and electric cars. We have installed 12v DC rechargeable
battery which powers microcontroller, four drive DC motors
of 45rpm.One DC motor of 200rpm and Bluetooth device.
d. Bluetooth device
A Bluetooth transceiver module has been installed in
the robot .this device helps in the control of the robot through
smart phones .when the battery is switched on, the Bluetooth
is on and is connected to the Smartphone.
The following are some of the features of Bluetooth
device used:
 Serial port BluetoothDrop-in replacement for wired
serial connections, transparent usage
 Frequency – 2.4GHZ
 BER Speed: Asynchronous: 2.1 Mbps(Max) / 160
kbps, Synchronous: 1Mbps/1Mbps . Fig 5. Functional block diagram of embedded circuit
 Bluetooth serial port Power supply: +3.3VDC VII. EMBEDDED CIRCUIT
50m.
An embedded system is a computer system with a
dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electrical
system, often with real-time computing constraints. It
is embedded as part of a complete device often including
hardware and mechanical parts. Embedded systems control
many devices in common use today. Ninety-eight percent of
all microprocessors are manufactured as components of
embedded systems. Modern embedded systems are often
based on microcontrollers (i.e. CPU's with integrated memory
Fig 4. Bluetooth device or peripheral interfaces), but ordinary microprocessors (using
e. Microcontroller external chips for memory and peripheral interface circuits)
A microcontroller is a small computer on a are also common, especially in more-complex systems.
single integrated circuit. In modern terminology, it is
a system on a chip or SiC. A microcontroller contains one or
more CPUs (processor cores) along with memory and
programmable input/output peripherals. Program memory in
the form of Ferroelectric RAM, NOR flash or OTP ROM is
also often included on chip, as well as a small amount
of RAM. Microcontrollers are designed for embedded
applications, in contrast to the microprocessors used
in personal computers or other general purpose applications
consisting of various discrete chips. A printed circuit board
(PCB) mechanically supports and electrically connects
electronic components using conductive tracks, pads and
other features etched from copper sheets laminated onto a
non-conductive substrate. Components (e.g. capacitors,
resistors or active devices) are generally soldered on the PCB. Fig 6. Embedded circuit.
The robot is installed with SST89E51RD2, where SST –
Silicon Storage technology E – Version E RD – Research and
Development.

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Vol. 6 Issue 06, June - 2017

Operator can control the robot and see the picture of the
inside pipe on the output screen and thus if there is any defect
such as such as internal material loss , big crack, weld defects
dents corrosion erosion or blockage in the pipe . The exact
location of the defect is judge by the distance meter provided
on the robot it gives distance in centimeters from the starting
point from which the robot was inserted inside the pipe. the
distance the robot can travel i.e. the length which it can
capable to inspect is depends upon the length of the extension
cable provided to robot. To insure the tractive force required
pulling the long extension cable and other accessories, robot
train can be used which can be made by joining the two or
more robots through the universal joints at the end. The
inspection can be done on the basis of video and pictures
inside the pipe provided by camera. The result can be
obtained directly on the basis of these pictures or with the
help image processing.

Fig 7. Block diagram of receiver circuit

VIII. WORKING OF THE PIPE INSPECTION ROBOT
As Pipe Inspection Robot is designed mainly for drainage
pipes, it has ability to move inside any bore diameter pipes
ranging from 8 inch to 12 inch. Suitable mechanisms are
provided so that it gains ability to move inside the bends and
tapered pipes. The PIR have ability to see inside the dark
pipes where no human eyes can see. This made possible by
mounting the smart phone with 5MP camera and flash light
on the top of the robot. The output is send to outside screen
where the digital hi-quality image can be received. The
perfect fitness between the pipe and robot is first conformed
after inserting the robot in the pipe. Then the supply of DC Fig 8 . Working of the Robot
12V dc current from is on for working of robot and the
camera is also started. The robot is controlled by using
IX. APPLICATIONS
another Smartphone which displays the control icons to the
Today’s mobile robots are used for inspection,
forward ,reverse ,right and left by swiping that icon .it also
surveillance, monitoring and non-destructive tasks. Some of
displays a real time video so that, we can see the pictures and
the current applications are as below:
videos inside the pipe.
Working of PIR is starts from its insertion in pipe.. PIR is  Allow inspection of inaccessible and / or hazardous
about 42.5 cm in length and to move it freely inside the bend equipment or work areas.
pipes. As switch is on and current is flowing through wires,  Provide on-line inspection / maintenance without loss of
wheels starts moving and forces PIR to PIR could have more equipment / plant availability & remove
than three arms for better judgment and perfection but it
would increase the weight and cost of manufacturing and  Helps human from potentially hazardous work situations.
hence we need to do tradeoff between money involvement  Provide information about the health and condition of
and perfection. PIR wheel motion is provided with 45 rpm, critical plant components to facilitate decision
12 V DC motors hence its speed can be maintained between
0.1m/s to 1.5m/s. The power provided to motors is from  Reduce equipment / plant downtime and improve
single 12V dc adapter hence load on each motor will be maintenance and inspection procedure thorough better
minimum that expected. The robot is run inside pipe by coverage and documentation.
forward and reverse motion of the wheel which has the speed
of 45 rpm. This constant slow speed is to insure better  The robot has great application in accessing the regions
inspection because of the high speed there may be possibility of pipe where human cannot reach. It can be mounted
to miss the any defect .The smart phone on the robot captures with a camera which sends pictures of inside and help in
the picture with clarity of 5 mega pixels. The output image inspection.
from camera is send to another smart phone which is used to
control the robot.

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Published by : International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT)
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Vol. 6 Issue 06, June - 2017

 It can be fitted with ultrasonic sensors and can pin point REFERENCES
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X. CONCLUSION
Robots play an important role in inside pipe-network
maintenance and their repairing. Some of them are designed
to realize specific tasks for pipes with constant diameters, and
other may adapt the structure function of the variation of the
inspected pipe.
Here, inside pipe modular robotic system is proposed. An
important design goal of this robotic system is the
adaptability to the inner diameters of the pipes. The given
prototype permits the usage of Smartphone camera for
visualization of the in-pipe inspection. This prototype is
wirelessly controlled by a Smartphone using Bluetooth
connectivity.
The major advantage is that it can be used in case of pipe
diameter variation with the simple mechanism. A pipe
inspection robot was developed that can be applied to 8inch -
15 inch pipeline. A real prototype was developed to test the
feasibility of this robot for inspection of in-house pipelines.
The types of inspection tasks are very different. A modular
design was considered to easily adapt to new environments
with small changes. Presence of obstacles within the
pipelines is a difficult issue. In the proposed mechanism, the
problem is solved by the installation of a declogging system
at the front of the robot. The robot is designed to be able to
traverse horizontal pipes. Several types of modules for pipe
inspection mini robot have been presented. Many of the
design goals of the Pipe inspection robot have been
completely fulfilled.

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