Mobility and eccentricity analysis of a helical belt drive in-pipe robot

Pipeline grids of various size and material are pervasive in today´s modern society. The frequent inspection and maintenance of such pipeline grids have presented a tremendous challenge. It is advocated that only advanced robot design embedded with intelligent electronics and control algorithms could perform the job. Given the ever increasing demands for intelligent in-pipe robots, various in-pipe drive mechanisms have been reported. One of the simplest is helical drives that have only one degree of freedom. All previously reported in-pipe helical drives are based on independent passive wheels that are tilted an angle. In this paper, the wheels are replaced by pulleys that are synchronized by a timing belt. This small change will result in significant improvement as will be highlighted in this paper. In this paper, the mobility of the robot design is analyzed. Uneven tracking force occurs at the bend is also illustrated. An experiment has been conducted to show the steady traction force.