Development of Movable Drilling Robot inside a Pipeline

Abstract

The study deals with the development of a drilling robot traveling inside a pipeline. Aiming at inexpensive anti-corrosion and repair of underground pipes, a new method was established and has been widely employed, in which the internal wall of the pipes is coated with some pieces of material or resin layers. However, the coating method has a disadvantage of closing the inlets of pipes connected to a coated pipe. Accordingly, the inlets must be opened again from the outside of the pipe by means of excavating works, which cause high cost and a lot of waste time, and so on. Thus, a movable drilling robot is developed to make the inlets again without excavating works. It can move inside the pipe, search the closed inlets to the connected pipes, and drill holes in the closed inlets. The robot consists of a drilling module for machining holes in the closed inlets, a tool positioning. module for searching drilled points, determining the tool position and checking the drilled holes, and a moving module traveling inside a pipe for carrying the above-mentioned modules. From the demonstration experiments, it is found that the robot can move inside the coated pipeline, find the closed inlets, position a tool, machine holes and check the holes.