Design and Modeling of an In-pipe Inspection Robot with Repairing Capability Equipped with a Manipulator

In this paper, an in-pipe inspection robot is designed and modelled with a manipulator in order to provide the manipulation ability. In pipe robots are necessary machines toward periodical inspection of the inner environments of the pipe in where human is not able to enter. However, most of such robots are limited to perform inspecting operations. there are a lot of cases in where we need to perform an repairing task inside the pipe. In order to design an in-pipe inspection robot which is able to perform an operational task within the pipes, the robot is redesigned by adding a two-linkage serial manipulator with two extra DOFs on the main body of the moving robot. In this way, the robot will be a system with three degrees of freedom. The robot’s kinematic and dynamic models are obtained using Denavit-Hartenberg convention and Euler-Lagrange relations, respectively. Also, the system is controlled using inverse dynamics. Formulas verification, as well as analysis of its results, has been done by MATLAB software. The correctness of modelling and efficiency of the proposed manipulation is investigated by comparing actual and desired paths. The proposed mechanism is efficient regarding ease and cost reduction. It will be seen that the mechanism is fully applicable for this robot to cover the operational tasks.