Design, modeling, and impedance control of a new in-pipe inspection robot equipped by a manipulator

In this paper, a new in-pipe robot is designed and modeled, which is equipped by a manipulator in order to perform repairing tasks within the pipelines. Also, in order to provide a good manipulation process, impedance control is designed and implemented for the robot. Most of the in-pipe robots are limited to perform inspecting operations and are not capable of conducting manipulating tasks. In order to cover the mentioned deficiency, the robot is redesigned by adding a manipulator on the main body of the moving platform. Afterward, the model of the overall robot is extracted. Finally, impedance control is also designed and implemented for the robot so that not only the position of the end-effector can be controlled, but also the required force to cover the repairing task can be precisely provided. The correctness of modeling and efficiency of the proposed mobile in-pipe robot is verified by conducting some simulation scenarios in MATLAB. It will be seen that by the aid of the proposed mechanism and employing the designed force controlling strategy, the manipulation process of the robot in the pipes can be realized successfully.