Design and Motion Mechanism of a Screw Drive In-pipe Robot with Adaptability to In-pipe Environment

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  • 1. State Key Laboratory of Robotics, Shenyang Institute of Automation,Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016;
    2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049;
    3. Department of Robotics, Ritsumeikan University, Shiga-ken 525-8577, Japan)

Online published: 2016-05-05

Abstract

In order to improve the adaptability of the screw drive in-pipe robot in straight and curved pipes with varied curvature radius, the problem of adaptive movement mechanism is researched. Considering the properties of the pipe environment, straight movement mechanism, steering movement mechanism and load regulation mechanism are proposed based on the motion and force models of the robot. The research reveals that environment adaptability of the screw drive in-pipe robot can be obtained by modulating inclining angles of the rollers. The problems of motion interference and roller slipping can be also solved to some extent. A screw drive in-pipe robot with an adaptive linkage mechanism is designed based on the adaptive movement mechanism. The adaptive linkage mechanism can obtain the pipe environment information through eccentric arms and change the inclining angles of the robot’s rollers differentially. The dynamic simulation results show that the proposed robot can adaptively pass through the straight and curved pipes with varied curvature radius, and the robot can also change the maximum load ability by the adaptive linkage mechanism.

Cite this article

LI Te1, 2, MA Shugen1, 3, LI Bin1, WANG Minghui1, WANG Yuechao1 . Design and Motion Mechanism of a Screw Drive In-pipe Robot with Adaptability to In-pipe Environment[J]. Journal of Mechanical Engineering, 2016 , 52(9) : 9 -17 . DOI: 10.3901/JME.2016.09.009

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