A New Type of In-Pipe Inspection Minirobot with Adaptable Structure (IPMR-3)

Pipe damages and imperfections led to a start in researching ways of inspecting and maintaining the pipelines. An attractive solution is using mobile robots for this matter. This paper presents the development process of a wheeled in-pipe minirobot with adaptable structure called IPMR-3). IPMR-3has three articulated mechanisms placed at 120° angles around its central axis. The actuation is done with three DC motors. IPMR-3 can adapt its structure to pipe diameters ranged between 220 and 380 mm. The end of the paper presents the image capturing method, achieved with a C910 wireless video camera, and images from the testing process