An underwater robot for pipe inspection

This paper describes the design of an autonomous mobile robot for use in the inspection of water-filled pipes. The design is based on ultrasonic communications, thus obviating the need for an umbilical cable. The control of the robot is distributed on a local area network which connects all the actuators and sensors. The robot has four legs, powered by compressed air which allows the robot to 'walk' over obstacles. As it can have negative buoyancy, it can also 'walk' along the roof of the pipe if there are obstacles on the floor. The robot also has electrically driven propellers, so that it can 'swim' when having neutral buoyancy. Sensors include a TV camera and ultrasonic imaging of the inside pipe surface. The project described is a joint-venture between City University of Hong Kong, through Pearl Technologies Ltd., Portsmouth Technology Consultants (Portech) Ltd. and the Robotics Research Institute at Harbin Institute of Technology in China.