Vision-based pipe grasping scheme for a pole climbing robot

We developed a pole climbing robot to inspect or repair pipe structures such as a containment spray piping system in a nuclear power plant or the pipe truss system in a stadium. The robot works in places very high from the ground, and thus the robot should be able to grasp the next pipes semi-autonomously as the operator cannot see the next pipe for the robot to grasp. This paper proposes a vision-based scheme for grasping a cylindrical pipe autonomously. The scheme can be used practically for a pole climbing robot in real time.