Citation
Brunete González, Alberto and Torres Matesanz, José Emilio and Hernando Gutiérrez, Miguel and Gambao Galán, Ernesto
(2008).
A Proposal for a Multi-Drive Heterogeneous Modular Pipe- Inspection Micro-Robot.
"International Journal of Information Acquisition", v. 5
(n. 2);
pp. 111-126.
ISSN 0219-8789.
https://doi.org/10.1142/S0219878908001533.
Abstract
This paper presents the architecture used to develop a micro-robot for narrow pipes inspection. Both the electromechanical design and the control scheme will be described. In pipe environments it is very useful to have a method to retrieve information of the state of the inside part of the pipes in order to detect damages, breaks and holes. Due to the di_erent types of pipes that exists, a modular approach with di_erent types of modules has been chosen in order to be able to adapt to the shape of the pipe and to chose the most appropriate gait. The micro-robot has been designed for narrow pipes, a _eld in which there are not many prototypes. The robot incorporates a camera module for visual inspection and several drive modules for locomotion and turn (helicoidal, inchworm, two degrees of freedom rotation). The control scheme is based on semi-distributed behavior control and is also described. A simulation environment is also presented for prototypes testing.