• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.25 no.12
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• pp.2030-2039
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• 2001

Recently, various inpipe inspection robots are developed and its effective values are increased in industrial use. However, it is so difficult to make a inpipe inspection robot system which has flexible mobility and accuracy of inspection in pipelines. Especially, it is very important to know the exact crack position. In this paper, we are to present a lately developed inpipe inspection robot system which can resolve the above Problems. The robot is configured as an articulated structure like a snake. Two active driving vehicles are located in front and rear of the inspection robot respectively and passive modules such as a nondestructive testing module and a control module are chained between the active vehicles. Special feature of the robot system is a ground interface, which is able to show informations of robot and pipelines. By using this, so called virtual map in this paper, user is able to know the pipelines'feature and crack position.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.261-266
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• 2002

Up to now a wide variety of researches on inpipe robots for inspection 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. The robot for the inspection of pipelines should freely move along the basic configuration of pipelines such as along horizontal or vertical pipelines. Moreover it should be able to travel along reducers and elbows, and especially the capability for steering in branches is essential to it. In this report, citical points and technologies in the development of the inpipe inspection robots are introduced and inpipe robots developed for last several years are introduced.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.20 no.10
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• pp.1044-1050
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• 2014

Robots used for pipe inspection have been studied for a long time and many mobile mechanisms have been proposed to achieve inspection tasks within pipelines. Localization is an important factor for an inpipe robot to perform successful autonomous operation. However, sensors such as GPS and beacons cannot be used because of the unique characteristics of inpipe conditions. In this paper, an inpipe localization algorithm based on elbow detection is presented. By processing the projected marker images of laser pointers and the attitude and heading data from an IMU, the odometer module of the robot determines whether the robot is within a straight pipe or an elbow and minimizes the integration error in the orientation. In addition, an off-line positioning algorithm has been performed with forward and backward estimation and Procrustes analysis. The experimental environment has consisted of several straight pipes and elbows, and a map of the pipeline has been constructed as the result.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.25 no.12
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• pp.2019-2029
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• 2001

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.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.121-129
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• 2000

The robotic automation in NonDestructive Testing(NDT) is a promising field of research and it helps to expand the applications of NDT enormously. Especially, in the case of pipelines which are widely used in various industrial facilities, it is required to secure adequate ways of inspection in the usual maintenance activitites. In this paper, we present a robot system for inpipe inspection of underground urban gas pipelines. The robot is configured as an articulated structure like a snake with a tether cable. Two active driving vehicles are located in front and rear of the system, respectively and passive modules such as a NonDestructive Testing module and a control module are chained between the active vehicles. The proposed system has outstanding mobility by employing a new steering mechanism called Double Active Universal Joint, which makes it possible to cope with complicated configurations of underground pipelines. Characteristic features of the system are described and the construction of the system is briefly outlined.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.223-231
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• 2008

This paper introduces a robot called the MRINSPECT V (Multifunctional Robotic crawler for Inpipe in-SPECTion V) for the inspection of pipelines with a nominal 8-in inside diameter. Based on the mechanism of the previous model MRINSPECT IV, we developed a new MRINSPECT V by using the differential driving mechanism, so that just simply controlling the speed of each driving units helps the robot to travel effectively inside the pipelines. Furthermore, the robot uses clutches in transmitting driving power to wheels. This clutch mechanism enables MRINSPECT V to select the suitable driving method according to the shape of pipeline. In this paper, the critical points in design and construction of the proposed robot are described with the preliminary results to provide good mobility and increase the efficiency.