Design of in-pipe inspection vehicles for φ25, φ50, φ150 pipes

In this paper we outline the design of in-pipe inspection vehicle for pipes with diameters of φ25, φ50 and φ150 mm, respectively. We introduce the concept “whole stem drive”. This concept is very effective to allow an in-pipe vehicle to travel long distance in the pipeline. Based on this concept, we have built four in-pipe vehicles, the “Theseus” series. For the pipe with a diameter of 50 mm, we propose two mechanisms, in-pipe vehicle with spiral motion (Theseus-I) and in-pipe vehicle for the practical gas pipe (Theseus-II). For the pipe with a diameter of 150 mm, we propose the in-pipe vehicle based on the idea of control configured vehicle (Theseus-III). Finally, for the pipe with a diameter of 25 mm, we propose the in-pipe vehicle which has an actuator outside of the pipe (Theseus-IV)