Automatic Grasping of a Pole Climbing Robot using a Visual Camera with Laser Line Beams

A pole climbing robot was developed to inspect or repair pipe structures. The robot has a 5 degree-of-freedom manipulator and two grippers, and moves along cylindrical pipes, overcoming obstacles such as flanges and valves like an inch-worm. 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 very practical vision-based scheme with line lasers for grasping a cylindrical pipe autonomously. The scheme can be used practically for a pole climbing robot in real time