DeWaLoP-Monolithic Multi-module In-Pipe Robot System

Luis A. Mateos and Markus Vincze

Automation and Control Institute (ACIN) Vienna University of Technology Gusshausstrasse 27 - 29 / E376, A - 1040 Vienna, Austria {mateos,vincze}@acin.tuwien.ac.at

Abstract. This paper describes the multi-module configuration of the Developing Water Loss Prevention DeWaLoP in-pipe robot system. The system objective is to redevelop the pipes of the over 100 years old fresh water supply systems of Vienna and Bratislava by crawling into water canals of about 1 meter in diameter and applying a restoration material to repair the pipes. Inpipe robots with multiple modules are commonly arranged as a chain, one module linked to the next one, with at least one driving module if the robots working environment consist of straight pipelines and with two driving modules if the pipelines contains bifurcations, where one driving module is used to move the robot in and the other is used to move out of the pipeline. The DeWaLoP robot is required to work in pipelines with bifurcation; the in-pipe robot system consists of two modules, a mobile robot (driving module) and a maintenance unit. Nevertheless, its mechanical design has been modified from the classic chain-link-module, enabling the robot to move in and out of the pipe with only one driving module as a monolithic robot. Keywords: Robotics, Multi-module robot, Wheeled locomotion, In-pipe robot.

Introduction

Fresh water pipe-lines are prevalent, important, valuable, unnoticed and often in a damaged state. Water pipes carry fresh water into buildings from the municipal water systems; these types of pipes are frequently made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC/uPVC), ductile/cast iron, polyethylene, or copper. Water pipe systems are prone to damage due to aging, excessive traffic, geological change and earthquakes. Resulting from these damages, the pipe joints may not be completely hermetic and external materials (such as soil, polluted water, among others) may contaminate the fresh water system. Commonly, due to high cost of pipe replacement, pipe cleaning and repairing is preferred [1]. In-pipe robots, which have a long history of development in robotics, can be classified into several elementary forms according to movement patterns, as shown in figure 1, although most of them have been designed depending upon specific applications [2].
S. Jeschke, H. Liu, and D. Schilberg (Eds.): ICIRA 2011, Part I, LNAI 7101, pp. 406415, 2011. Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011

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Fig. 1. In-pipe robot classification. (a) Pig type. (b) Wheel type. (c) Caterpillar type. (d) Wallpress type. (e) Leg type. (f) Inchworm type. (g) Screw type.

In fact, the goals of the in-pipe robot have close relations with the working environment, because the principal requirement of the in-pipe robot is to be able to explore wherever it has to go within its working environment. Existing robots generally travel along horizontal pipelines successfully, but only some of them can cope with complicated pipeline configurations, such as Y-shaped pipelines configuration. Furthermore, few of them can negotiate L-shaped pipelines (elbows) and/or T-shaped pipelines (also called branches). For successful navigation, however, in-pipe robots are strongly demanded to have the ability of negotiating elbows and branches, because urban water pipelines are configured with a number of special ttings, such as elbows, branches, and their combinations. 1.1 Common In-Pipe Robot Systems

In-pipe robots can be classified into several elementary forms according to the movement patterns. Wheel-driven-systems guarantee under regular circumstances within the straight pipes a very efficient movement [3]. Actual research and development is dedicated to the realization of flexible, multi segment platforms instead of monolithic robots to guarantee movement in pipes with turn-offs and curves. Further, to get more stability in moving within pipes, the wheels are distributed over the entire cross-section of the robot covering the entire diameter of the pipe.

Fig. 2. a) Wheel-drive-system. b) Multi-segment in-pipe wheel-drive-system

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The traction force is proportional to the friction coefficient and the pressing force between the wheel and the pipeline surface, and the friction coefficient depends on the material of the wheel and the surface condition of the pipelines. The disadvantage of this method is the lack of flexibility to adjust to pipe diameters bigger than 10%. In-pipe robots using a wheel-drive-system are commonly used for inspection, cut or superficially repair a pipe. Examples of this kind of robot can be found in [4 - 6]. 1.2 DeWaLoP Developing Water Loss Prevention Robot System

The DeWaLoP Developing Water Loss Prevention robot system objective is to redevelop the pipes of the over 100 years old fresh water supply systems of Vienna (3000 km length) and Bratislava (2800 km), by crawling into water canals of about one meter diameter and applying a restoration material to repair the pipes. Attempts to redevelop these types of pipes included operators inside the one-meter pipe diameter, which creates a special situation that presents safety and health risk.

Fig. 3. An operator inside the pipe, cleaning a pipe joint

Currently, the applications of robots for the maintenance of the pipeline utilities are considered as one of the most attractive solutions available. The DeWaLoP robot is intended to be a low cost robot with high reliability and easiness in use, the robot system includes the conventional inspection of the pipe system, which is carried out using a cable-tethered robot with an onboard video system. An operator remotely controls the movement of the robot systems. There are no commercial robots able to perform this specific redevelopment tasks. Nevertheless, there are several robots on the market; these robots have different objectives, as well as different working environments. Some of them may be used to cut, or superficially repair or scan pipes, either in gas or water pipes. In the same way,

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these robots can be remotely operated, or autonomous; powered with batteries or powered with cables from a control station. Robots available in the market are mainly designed for pipes with diameters between 300 to 800mm. There are no commercial robots working in pipes with 1000mm diameter or bigger. The proposed DeWaLoP robot system is more complex than the typical commercial system; it is designed to perform several tasks (inspect, clean and redevelop) instead of a single one. The proposed solution consists of three main subsystems: a control station, a mobile robot (similar to a vehicle) and a maintenance system.

Fig. 4. Control station, mobile robot and maintenance system

Control station

The control station is in charge of monitoring and controlling all the systems of the inpipe robot. The main controller is composed of a couple of SBC (single board computers), one is in charge of monitoring and displaying the video images from the cameras on a LCD display, the second SBC is in charge of the robot systems remote control, which receives the information from the physical remote control (the joysticks, buttons and switches), in order to control the robot systems [7]. Mobile robot

The mobile robot enables the in-pipe system modules to move inside the pipe, in the same way, carries the electronic and mechanical components of the system, such as power supplies, restoration material tank, motor drivers, among others. It uses a differential wheel drive which makes the robot able to promptly adjust its position to remain in the middle of the pipe while moving.

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Maintenance unit

Structure able to expand or compress with a Dynamical Independent Suspension System (DISS) [8]. By expanding its wheeled-legs, it creates a rigid structure inside the pipe, so the robots cleaning and restoration tools work without any vibration or involuntary movement from the inertia of the tools and accurately restore the pipe; by compressing its wheeled-legs, the wheels become active so the maintenance structure is able to move along the pipe by the mobile robot. The structure consists of six wheeled legs, distributed in pairs of three, on each side, separated 120, supporting the structure along the centre of the pipe. The maintenance system combines a wheeldrive-system with a wall-press-system, enabling the system to operate in pipe diameters varying from 800mm to 1000mm.

Fig. 5. DeWaLoP maintenance system, geometric and force diagram inside the 800mm and 1000mm pipe

In-Pipe Multi-module Robot System

The locomotion of a multi-module in-pipe robot in chain-link-module configuration is directly related to the pipeline configuration. For a straight pipeline without Y or T configuration, the multi-module robot can be moved in and out of the pipe with only one driving module. If the pipeline contains bifurcation of any type, then the multimodule system must contain two driving modules, one for moving in the pipe and one for moving out. In these pipelines, if the multi-module system only contains one

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driving module, it can move in, but it cannot be moved out. This is because the module of the robot when moving out is a passive module, not a driving module, and it is not possible to direct a passive module in a chain-link configuration. The multi-module robot shown in figure 6 consist of two equal opposite parts, with a common component, the support 2 module. These two parts contain a camera, drive, battery, support and sensor modules; the only difference between both parts is that are opposite, one is for moving the robot inside the pipe and the other is for moving the robot out the pipe.

Fig. 6. In-pipe multi-module system with two driving modules

2.1

In-Pipe Robot Size

Pipeline configurations give geometric limitations and the size of a robot should be determined to satisfy the limitations. In an L-shaped pipelines (elbow), the robot can be modeled as a cylinder and relations can be derived between the diameter of the elbow, the curvature, and the size of the robot. The worst placement of the robot is when it is inclined with 45 degrees. If the size of the robot is not the proper for the pipe diameter, the robot may get stuck. Therefore, a relation between the pipe diameter and the length of the robot has been calculated, for a robot to be able to turn a 45 elbow pipe configuration [9]. This relation assures that any module will be able to move freely in the pipe, D < Lr < 1.75D, where D is the diameter of the pipe and Lr is the length of the robot or the length of each system module. In the same way the width w of each module must satisfy {(R+D/2) sin 45 (R D/2)} < w < D, where R denotes the radius of curvature.

DeWaLoP Monolithic Multi-module Robot System

An important requirement for the DeWaLoP robot system is to be portable, to easily integrate into the pipeline. This is, to design the robot system in a simple way; with the less number of modules as possible. As previously mentioned, if the pipe line is not straight, if it contains bifurcation (T or Y pipeline configuration) and the robot system is multi-module, then it is needed to have two driving modules, one to move the robot in and one to move it out.

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The DeWaLoP in-pipe robot consists of two modules, the mobile robot (driving module) and the maintenance unit (pipe-joint redevelopment module). If following the chain-link configuration, an extra driving module is required to enable the robot to move in pipelines with bifurcations. Nevertheless, to simplify the multi-module configuration for the DeWaLop robot, a re-design of the modules link is essential. By analyzing the mechanical properties of the in-pipe modules (the mobile robot and the maintenance unit), it is possible to observe, that the link between these two modules is omni-directional, it can be move in x, y and z - axis. This means that the mobile robot can push or pull the maintenance module in any direction.

Fig. 7. Omni-directional link between the mobile robot (driving module) and the maintenance unit in chain-link configuration

The re-design consist in relocate the points of contacts of the modules with respect to the link. Instead of linking both modules with a single point of contact, the link, will become multi-contact, so the mobile robot push or pull the maintenance module in different points over its structure. This is done, by adjusting the structure and size of the mobile robot to fit under the maintenance system as shown in figure 8.

Fig. 8. 3D points of contact (link) between mobile robot and maintenance unit

The points of contact are arranged to enable the maintenance unit module movement over the 3D space without interfering between the axes. The structure of the maintenance module is triangular and the mobile robot is rectangular, making possible to arrange the maintenance unit over the mobile robot. Moreover, the mobile

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robot is the active module, which drives the entire robot system, while the maintenance system is the passive module. On the mobile robot, extensions arms are added to each of its four corners, under the triangular structure of the maintenance module. These extensions enable movement to the maintenance module over the x axis, when the mobile robot moves x+ or x-. In the same way it will enable movement of the maintenance unit over the z axis, when the mobile robot moves z+ or z-. In the y axis, it is only possible to be move in the positive y+, as shown in figure 9.

Fig. 9. 3D points of contact between the mobile robot and the maintenance unit. a) Mobile robot and maintenance unit. b) Mobile robot extensions. c) Points of contact in x and z-axis. d) Points of contact in y-axis.

Thus, the final version of the system is a monolithic robot composed by two aggregated independent modules, one active and one passive. When the robot is moving in the pipeline, the mobile robot is the active module and the maintenance unit is the passive, and vice versa when redeveloping the pipe [7][8].

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Fig. 10. DeWaLoP robot. a) Mobile robot. b) Maintenance system. c) Mobile robot extension arms as x and z-axis points of contact.

Conclusion

The proposed monolithic multi-module in-pipe robot system is simple and compact, in contrast to the in-pipe multi-module chain-link configuration, which requires the robot to have two driving modules, in order to navigate in pipelines with bifurcations, where one driving module is for moving in and the other one is for moving out of the pipe. The proposed 3D contact-link enables the entire DeWaLoP robot, consisting of two independent modules, to be driven by a single driving module, simplifying the robot system. Acknowledgments. This work is part-financed by Project DeWaLoP from the European Regional Development Fund, Cross-Border Cooperation Program SlovakiaAustria 2007-2013.

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