Host: The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers
Name : [in Japanese]
Date : June 01, 2022 - June 04, 2022
Inspection of water pipes is necessary because the water supply is an important infrastructure. Traditional robots that are actuated by a mechanical system and covered with a hard body are difficult to make to fit small pipes. For this reason, soft robots are suitable as in-pipe inspection robots. However, it is difficult for these robots to move in pipes of various diameters without changing design, and it is difficult to pass through the step part where the diameter of the pipe becomes smaller. We proposed a twisted bundled tube locomotive device to overcome these problems. This device can move in pipes of various diameters without changing design but has not yet been shown that it can pass through the step part. In this paper, we make a device that deformed into a tapered shape by changing the pitch of the spiral at each location. It can pass through the step part.
