Project McClane: Developing a Pipe Inspection Robot
Abstract
Pipelines are an integral part of modern infrastructure. Whether they are installed inside, outside, or underground these systems require inspection and maintenance. The customer for this senior design project needs a robot that can maneuver through pipes, allow a user to perform visual inspections, and remove obstructions. The robots found through background research are insufficient solutions given that none of them fully fulfill the customer’s requirements. Project McClane seeks to resolve these insufficiencies by improving upon existing pipe crawlers and bio-inspired robotic solutions. The team has made progress with customer contact, generating an initial requirements list, and conducting an initial literature review. Traditionally a solution is designed around a given problem and a set of requirements. Due to the undefined scope of the customer’s needs the design process will diverge from tradition. A test structure made of pipes will be created first to constrain the problem and provide bounds in which the team can then design the pipe crawler. This project may provide a novel solution that can benefit a wide variety of industries for pipe inspection and maintenance applications.
Project McClane: Developing a Pipe Inspection Robot
Pipelines are an integral part of modern infrastructure. Whether they are installed inside, outside, or underground these systems require inspection and maintenance. The customer for this senior design project needs a robot that can maneuver through pipes, allow a user to perform visual inspections, and remove obstructions. The robots found through background research are insufficient solutions given that none of them fully fulfill the customer’s requirements. Project McClane seeks to resolve these insufficiencies by improving upon existing pipe crawlers and bio-inspired robotic solutions. The team has made progress with customer contact, generating an initial requirements list, and conducting an initial literature review. Traditionally a solution is designed around a given problem and a set of requirements. Due to the undefined scope of the customer’s needs the design process will diverge from tradition. A test structure made of pipes will be created first to constrain the problem and provide bounds in which the team can then design the pipe crawler. This project may provide a novel solution that can benefit a wide variety of industries for pipe inspection and maintenance applications.