Semi-automatic pipeline inspection robot systems

As the need of well-being life becomes popular, one of important issues is clean drinking water. Delivery of clean water from the main water fountain to the end user is very crucial. However, typical pipelines are being contaminated by rust and several chemicals. And thus the water delivered to house is not trustful as the drinking water. Thus, cleaning and inspection of the in-house pipeline becomes important issue. In order for development of in-house pipeline with the diameter of 13mm, it is very hard to use motorized automatic robot that has been employed in most pipeline robot system for large sized pipelines. Thus, this paper introduces a new semi-automotive pipeline inspection robot system for small sized pipelines. It consists of a CCD camera, a steering mechanism, and sensors to locate the robot inside the pipeline. The robot system is carried by an extension cable, which is in advance being penetrated into the pipeline by a compressed air. A lab prototype pipeline was developed to test the feasibility of the developed pipeline inspection robot system and the feasibility of this semi-automatic pipeline inspection method was proven successfully through experimentation.