Development of a novel in-pipe walking robot

Pipes of different purposes are knitted around densely populated modern urban areas. If not properly maintained, they may become time bombs threatening the general public. There, there have been increasing interests in developing intelligent and agile robots that can work inside pipes. In this paper, a novel in-pipe walking robot module based on planetary gearing is proposed. A number of such modules are cascaded to form a modular walking robot. To illustrate the effectiveness, a prototype in-pipe walking robot, composed of three modules connected by coil springs, is analyzed. The three robotic modules are set to walk with asynchronous steps in order to keep stability during movement inside a pipe. Dynamic analysis simulating the change of driving force has been performed. A prototype showing the walking mechanism is also built.