Abstracts Category : Other

A real-time robotic platform for pipelineinspection

by Ryan J Fish

Pipelines are used around the world to transport rawmaterials, waste products, and, critically, potable water.Protecting the pipes from the elements often leaves them difficultto inspect for leaks and corrosion, which can cause costly, evendeadly, damage. Currently, typical inspection methods are costly,interrupt service, and have highly limited inspection range. Thisthesis details the continuing development of a robotic platformcapable of actively maneuvering inside an in-service, potable-waterpipe, for the purpose of providing continuous, autonomous,long-range inspection of a pipe network. Complete inspection ofmunicipal water pipelines requires a compact robot capable ofmaneuvering junctions around 100mm in diameter, with flows that canexceed 1m/s. This work focuses on several additions to prior workat the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which developed ahull and planar propulsion system. The addition of ailerons allowsfull 3-dimensional control of the robot. A custom-built, wirelessembedded controller runs a customized real-time OS to provideclosed-loop control, as well as data-logging and remote access. Ageneric task architecture is designed to simplify the addition ofreal-time software modules.Advisors/Committee Members: Kamal Youcef-Toumi (advisor).