An underwater robot for pipe inspection

This paper describes the design of an autonomous mobile robot for use in the inspection of water-filled pipes. The design is based on ultrasonic communications, thus obviating the need for an umbilical cable. The control of the robot is distributed on a local area network which connects all the actuators and sensors. The robot has four legs, powered by compressed air which allows the robot to `walk´ over obstacles. As it can have negative buoyancy, it can also `walk´ along the roof of the pipe if there are obstacles on the floor. The robot also has electrically driven propellers, so that it can `swim´ when having neutral buoyancy. Sensors include a TV camera and ultrasonic imaging of the inside pipe surface. The project described is a joint-venture between City University of Hong Kong, through Pearl Technologies Ltd., Portsmouth Technology Consultants (Portech) Ltd. and the Robotics Research Institute at Harbin Institute of Technology in China