Radar tube crawler for quality assurance measurements of pipe systems

A 4 GHz bandwidth ultra-wideband radar and a tube crawler system were developed to asses the embedding quality of recently laid pipe systems. The goal is to detect harmful inhomogeneities and to guarantee a consistent foundation. An inadequate foundation could damage the pipe system and induce follow-up costs amounting to millions of euros. First, this paper will give a short summary about the application range of such a system and the necessity to do research in this area. Second, the system and its components are described including the mechanical assembly, the radar electronics, the integrated sensors and the antennas. Third, a test scenario is illustrated and the corresponding imaging results are shown. At last a summary and a short outlook for future work is given.