IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ROBOTICS, VOL. 21, NO.

1, FEBRUARY 2005

Differential-Drive In-Pipe Robot for

Moving Inside Urban Gas Pipelines
Se-gon Roh and Hyouk Ryeol Choi, Member, IEEE

AbstractPipelines for the urban gas-supply system require a

robot possessing outstanding mobility and advanced control algorithms, since they are configured with various pipeline elements,
such as straight pipelines, elbows, and branches. In this paper,
we present a comprehensive work for moving inside underground
urban gas pipelines with a miniature differential-drive in-pipe
robot, called the Multifunctional Robot for IN-pipe inSPECTion
(MRINSPECT) IV. MRINSPECT IV has been developed for the
inspection of urban gas pipelines with a nominal 4-in inside diameter. The mechanism for steering with differential-drive wheels,
arranged three-dimensionally, allows it to easily adapt to most of
the existing configurations of pipelines, as well as providing excellent mobility during navigation. After carrying out analysis for
fittings in pipelines, mathematical descriptions of their geometries
are presented, which make it possible to estimate the movement
patterns of the robot while passing through the fittings. Also, we
propose a method of controlling the robot by modulating speeds
of driving wheels that is applicable without sophisticated sensory
information. To confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method,
experiments are performed, and supplementary considerations on
the design of the in-pipe robot are discussed.
Index TermsBranch, differential drive, elbow, in-pipe robot,
steering mechanism.

I. INTRODUCTION

IPELINES which are tools for transporting oils, gases, and

other fluids, such as chemicals, have been employed as
major utilities in a number of countries for long time. Recently,
many troubles have occured in pipelines, and most of them are
caused by aging, corrosion, cracks, and mechanical damages
from third parties. Even though lasting activities for maintenance are strongly demanded, they need enormous budgets
that may not be easily handled by related industries. Currently,
the applications of robots for the maintenance of the pipeline
utilities are considered as one of the most attractive solutions
available.
In-pipe robots, which have a long history of development
in robotics, can be classified into several elementary forms
according to movement patterns, as shown in Fig. 1, although
Manuscript received August 26, 2003; revised May 28, 2004. This paper
was recommended for publication by Associate Editor K. Yoshida and Editor
I. Walker upon evaluation of the reviewers comments. This work was supported
by a grant from the Safety and Structural Integrity Research Center at Sung
Kyun Kwan University. This paper was presented in part at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Seoul, Korea, 2001, in part at
the International Symposium on Robotics, Seoul, Korea, 2001, and in part at the
IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Washington, DC,
2002.
The authors are with the Intelligent Robotics and Mechatronic System Laboratory, School of Mechanical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon
440-746, Korea (e-mail: [email protected]).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TRO.2004.838000

Fig. 1. Classification of in-pipe robots. (a) Pig type. (b) Wheel type.
(c) Caterpillar type. (d) Wall-press type. (e) Walking type. (f) Inchworm type.
(g) Screw type.

most of them have been designed depending upon specific

applications. As shown in Fig. 1(a), for example, the pig type
is one of the most well-known commercial ones, which is passively driven by the fluid pressure inside pipelines. It has been
employed for the inspection of pipelines with large diameters
[1]. The wheel type illustrated in Fig. 1(b) is similar to the plain
mobile robot, and a number of commercialized robots have
been reported up to now [2][19]. Fig. 1(c) shows the robot
with caterpillars instead of wheels [20]. As shown in Fig. 1(d),
the wall-press type, which has a number of advantages in
climbing vertical pipelines, corresponds to the robot with a
flexible mechanism for pressing the wall with whatever means
they apply [13], [21]. As depicted in Fig. 1(e), the walking type
possessing articulated legs can produce highly sophisticated
motions [22][25]. The inchworm type given in Fig. 1(f) is
usually employed for pipelines with very small diameters
[26][39]. The screw type (or helical-drive type) displays
the motion of a screw when it advances in the pipelines, as
depicted in Fig. 1(g) [37][42]. Most in-pipe robots employ the
mechanism derived from one of the aforementioned basic types
of mechanisms or their combinations. In fact, the goals of the
in-pipe robot have close relations with the taskspace of specific
applications, because the principal requirement of the in-pipe

1552-3098/$20.00 2005 IEEE

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ROBOTICS, VOL. 21, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2005

Fig. 3. Photo of MRINSPECT IV.

Fig. 2. Typical methods of steering in branch. (a) Articulated active

joint type: straight drive. (b) Articulated active joint type: steering drive.
(c) Differential-drive type: straight drive. (d) Differential-drive type: steering
drive.

robot is that the robot should be able to explore wherever it has

to go within its taskspace. Existing robots generally travel along
horizontal pipelines successfully, but only some of them can
cope with complicated pipeline configurations, such as vertical
pipelines, elbows (also called bends or L-shaped pipelines),
etc. Furthermore, few of them can negotiate branches (also
called T-shaped pipelines). For successful navigation, however,
in-pipe robots are strongly demanded to have the ability of
negotiating elbows and branches, because urban gas pipelines
are configured with a number of special fittings, such as elbows,
branches, and their combinations.
Up to now, several in-pipe robots with steering capability
have been reported. They are largely classified into two groups,
an articulated type and a differential-drive one, as shown in
Fig. 2. The articulated type is the robot with active articulated
joints physically similar to the snake or the annelid animal in
nature, which may be one of the most adequate mechanisms,
although its steering mechanism becomes complicated, for example, steering joint [9], [17], [19], rubber gas-actuated joint
[26], and double active universal joint [12], [13]. These robots
can move along branches. As an alternative approach, the differential-drive one that carries out steering by modulating the
speeds of driving wheels, as shown in Fig. 2(c) and (d), contains relatively simple mechanisms, whereas modeling and analysis of its movements according to pipeline configurations are
prerequisite.
Recently, we have proposed several prototypes of
in-pipe robots called the Multifunctional Robot for IN-pipe
inSPECTion (MRINSPECT) series, whose designs have been
mainly focused on the capability of steering [12], [13]. Though
MRINSPECT IV, the fourth prototype, shares a number of
aspects with the other robots in the MRINSPECT series, most
of the mechanism has been redesigned to be adequate for 4-in
underground gas pipelines, because the ideas for the previous

Fig. 4. Exploded view of MRINSPECT IV.

robots are not suitable for the pipeline with a smaller diameter.
MRINSPECT IV is featured with a link construction capable
of being folded forward and backward independently, and three
separated driving modules, which provide high flexibility and
mobility in a narrowly constrained space like pipelines. Its
mobility, however, not only depends upon the mechanism, but
also control strategies, proposed correspondingly.
This paper is organized as follows. After introducing
its overall mechanical construction, the mechanism of
MRINSPECT IV and considerations on navigation in the
pipelines are addressed. Then strategies for moving in the
fittings, such as elbows and branches, are discussed, where
their geometrical features are described with mathematical
expressions. Based on this, methods for controlling velocities
are developed, which are evaluated experimentally in the
testbed. Finally, we conclude the paper with supplementary
considerations on the design of the differential-drive robot.
II. OVERVIEW OF MRINSPECT IV
As depicted in Figs. 3 and 4, MRINSPECT IV largely
consists of three parts, called body frame, driving module, and
charge-coupled device (CCD) assembly. Three driving modules
are attached at the distal ends of foldable legs of the body frame,

ROH AND CHOI: DIFFERENTIAL-DRIVE IN-PIPE ROBOT FOR MOVING INSIDE URBAN GAS PIPELINES

Fig. 5.

Maximum radial dimension of MRINSPECT IV.

Fig. 7. Linkage mechanism. (a) Linkage configuration. (b) Wheeled leg.

Fig. 6.

Minimum radial dimension of MRINSPECT IV.

and they are located circumferentially 120 apart from each

other. The CCD assembly is mounted on the front side of the
body frame. The radial dimension of the robot is changeable
from 85 to 109 mm, while the axial one is a 150 mm constant,
as illustrated in Figs. 5 and 6. Also, the robot can exert 9.8 N
of tractive force and 0.15 m/s of speed in maximum just with
0.7 kg of its own weight.
A. Body Frame
As illustrated in Fig. 7(a), the body frame is a skeletal linkage
mechanism the other components, such as driving modules and
CCD assembly, are attached to. It is composed of two sets of
slider-crank mechanisms in the front and rear sides of the robot,
respectively, where each set consists of three slider-crank mechanisms located equidistantly along the circumferential direction.
Couplers of slider-crank mechanisms in the front and the rear
sides of the robot are connected to each other with driving modules, as shown in Fig. 7(b). Radial motions of wheels are synchronized with a ringlike slider illustrated in Fig. 7(a), and its
axial motion is limited with a stopper in the central shaft. The
front wheels and the rear ones, called the front wheel set and
rear wheel set, respectively, in this paper, are allowed to move
radially in an asymmetric fashion, as shown in Fig. 8. In the proposed mechanism, the distance between the central shaft and the
wheel is determined according to the movement of the link, the

Fig. 8.

Asymmetric movement of MRINSPECT IV.

elastic restoration force of the spring at the central shaft, and reaction forces from the wall. From Fig. 9, the following equation
can be derived:

(1)
where and denote the radial and axial directions, respecmeans the length of the crank, and
is the rotatively.
tion angle of the linkage.
and
represent displacements
along the and directions, respectively. Because the radial
can be uniquely calculated by using the axial
displacement
according to (1), the force pressing the wall
displacement
can be determined by adjusting the stiffness of the spring in the
initial design stage, and the tractive force of the robot is determined accordingly. Kinematically, the asymmetric motion is not

Fig. 9.

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ROBOTICS, VOL. 21, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2005

Model of link mechanism.

allowed when the front and rear wheels are constrained by the
motor casing. In case of the MRINSPECT IV, however, the front
and rear wheel sets can move along a radial direction independently, because the axial displacement according to the radial
one is not so large that the asymmetric motion is practically feasible, as shown in Fig. 8.
Since the proposed mechanism has been designed to make
the wheel have effective contact with the inside of pipelines and
to cope with the variation of pipelines, the robot is adaptable to
the uncertain pipeline conditions, as well as providing sufficient
traction forces during movements.
B. Driving Module
Three driving modules are attached at the ends of the legs on
the body frame, as depicted in Fig. 4. The driving module largely
consists of a geared DC motor (Maxon, 4.5 W) with an encoder,
several wheels, gears, and casings, as shown in Fig. 10(a). The
front wheel and the rear one are driven with a single motor via
gear transmission, as shown in Fig. 10(b), where s denote the
vectors for the rotating directions of the transmission units. As
the driving module is designed to be easily disassembled from
the body frame, the convenience in maintenance is ensured.
Driving modules, since they are independently controlled, amplify traction forces, which let the robot have sufficient tractive
forces on moving upward in the vertical pipelines.

Fig. 10. Driving module. (a) Outline of the driving module. (b) Details of
power transmission mechanism.

C. CCD Assembly
As shown in Fig. 11, the CCD assembly is composed of a
CCD camera, lamps for illumination, a frame, and an additional
mechanism, called the CCD wheel set. The CCD wheel set includes a CCD wheel rotating along the circumferential direction, and eight couples of the CCD subwheel located on CCD
wheels and capable of rotating along their own axes. Because
the CCD subwheels are capable of rotating circumferentially as
well as along its own axes, it helps the robot slide on the wall
during steering in the fittings and guides it in the desired direction, and prevents the body of the robot from having direct
contact with the wall so that the robot may not be stuck in the
pipeline.
III. PROBLEM STATEMENTS
The geometries of urban gas pipelines are relatively simple,
because their dimensions and configurations are regulated by
law. It is sure to be an advantageous aspect in developing an

Fig. 11.

Construction and function of CCD assembly.

in-pipe robot, but there are several intrinsic problems to be considered in the design of the in-pipe robot, especially its size.
Since the inside of a pipeline is narrow and rigidly constrained,
the size of the robot is not allowed to be excessively large or extremely small, which is determined depending on the size of the
pipelines. Hence, the selection of the differential-drive robot,
because it provides simplicity and compactness in mechanism,
assures advantages over the others. Nevertheless, moving inside
pipelines with a differential-drive robot produces several difficult problems in practical applications.

ROH AND CHOI: DIFFERENTIAL-DRIVE IN-PIPE ROBOT FOR MOVING INSIDE URBAN GAS PIPELINES

When mobile robots navigate on plain surfaces, such as indoor environments, steering is accomplished by modulating the
speeds of wheels according to the desired movement direction.
It is not required to know the geometric configurations of the
workspace, and only internal states, such as position and velocity (visual or landmark information are used, too) are used.
In the case of in-pipe navigation, the situations are quite different from that of the plain surface. The inside of a pipeline
is a three-dimensionally curved surface, even in the case of a
straight pipe, and furthermore, the situations are getting more
complicated in the fittings. For instance, it is almost impossible
to derive an analytical model on turning in the branch. In the
elbow as well as the branch, the speeds of the wheels should be
different from each other, depending on the contact points with
the wall of the pipelines. In the case of a differential-drive robot,
therefore, a sophisticated method of controlling the speeds of the
wheels is required to prevent the slippage of the wheels. Thus,
just knowing the internal states of the robot is not sufficient any
more, and relevant additional information, such as the geometry
of the pipelines, as well as the locations of the contact points, is
needed. It is strongly demanded to sense internal states as well
as external environments simultaneously.
Up to now, these problems have not been discussed in depth,
though there are several robots having a mechanism similar to
MRINSPECT IV [10]. In this paper, we present a simple way
of controlling a differential-drive robot in lines composed of
straight pipelines, elbows, and branches. Excluding complicated
mathematical analysis, a method capable of being implemented
with simple calculations is developed. Based on the geometrical
model of the pipelines, we propose how to estimate the contact
location of the wheels, and then a method for modulating the
speed of the wheels is proposed. After analyzing the movement
paths of MRINSPECT IV, a strategy for moving in the fittings
is proposed.

Fig. 12.

Geometry of the elbow.

Fig. 13.

Behavior of the robot entering the elbow.

representation of the elbow geometry

by

can be written

IV. CONTROL OF IN-PIPE ROBOT IN THE ELBOW

In this section, a method of moving the robot in the elbow is
presented. The method for the branch will be discussed in the
next section, because it is impossible to treat in a unified framework. We begin with representing the geometry of the elbow
mathematically and describe the behavior of the robot in the
elbow. Using this work, a method of controlling the robot is
proposed.
A. Geometrical Analysis and Behavior of In-Pipe Robot in
the Elbow
As illustrated in Fig. 12, an elbow with its diameter , since
it is similar to a part of a torus, is generated by rotating a circle
of the diameter around a given axis. Let us set a coordinate
frame
at the center of the torus such that the axis is along
the axis of rotation of , and the other two orthogonal axes,
and , are set along the radial directions. The circle with
means the trace of the center of generated
the radius of
by rotating along the axis. According to the regulation of
urban gas supply equipment, should be 1.5 times larger than
. Thus, the mathematical
the diameter of , such as

(2)

where is the parameter representing the polar location of the

pipeline wall on from the axis, and denotes the latitude
angle of Circle A, as represented in Fig. 12. In Fig. 13, the movements of the robot in the elbow, simplified with wheels and linkages, are simulated using a three-dimensional (3-D) graphical
tool. Section C-A is a transition region where the center of the
robot moves from the straight pipeline to the elbow, while the
robot completely enters into the elbow in the section A-B. Curve
R represents the movement paths of the center of the robot rep, and Arc P corresponds to the section of the
resented with
Circle B included in the elbow, as shown in Fig. 13. It can be
noted that Curve R does not always coincide with Arc P, because the wheels of the robot with finite width have 3-D contact
with the curved inner surface of the elbow. The difference be, changes while
tween Arc P and Curve R, designated with
the robot goes through the elbow, and also, it depends on the
axial posture of the robot in the elbow. The location of the legs
with wheels around the central axis of the elbow, represented by

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ROBOTICS, VOL. 21, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2005

Fig. 15.

Comparisons of velocities depending on

Fig. 16.

Graphical simulation of the robot in the elbow.

Fig. 14. Analysis for movement of disk in elbow. (a) Perspective view.
(b) Projected view on x y plane.

Circle B, is called the axial-posture in this paper, and it plays a

significant role in controlling the steering direction of the robot
in the branch.
In the elbow, since the traces of wheels have different curvatures depending upon the contact points of the wheels with
the walls, the largest velocity of wheels in the elbow may be required to be 1.8 times faster than the smallest one in the extreme
case. Thus, it is strongly demanded to accurately modulate the
velocities of wheels, or it may give quite detrimental effects on
the overall performance of the robot, because some of wheels
are inevitably forced to slip, and the driving system may be in
danger of being overloaded during movement.
B. Computation of Wheel Velocities in the Elbow
First, let us assume that a disk with negligible thickness is
moving along the pipeline while its central rotating axis coincides with that of the pipeline. Then, since the geometry of the
elbow is known, the contact points , , and with the pipeline
can be easily calculated, when the disk is assumed to have three
wheels located equidistantly along the circumference. Considering a circle containing contact points , , and shown in
Fig. 14, a polygon connecting , , and will be an equilateral triangle inscribed in , and the paths of wheels will be arcs
,
, and
. Thus, the velocity ratios of three
with radii of
wheels are replaced with those of
,
, and
such as

(3)

where , called the axial posture angle, designates the angular

is able to be sensed
position of the contact point . Since
with the CCD camera (or can be estimated using the initial axial
posture angle of the robot on entering the pipeline, assuming
that the robot does not experience spiral motions), velocities of
wheels can be easily controlled using (3). As shown in Fig. 15
the velocities of wheels are quite different, depending on . To
accurately modulate the velocities of the wheels in the elbow,
the paths of the wheels should be computed based on the actual
behavior of the robot. However, as shown in Fig. 16, where the
graphical simulation of the movement of the robot in the elbow
is illustrated, it may not be possible in reality, because of the
geometric complexity of the robot and contact conditions.
In this paper, as illustrated in Fig. 17, the robot is simplified
as a form easily handled in the computation, such that the body
and the frame of the robot are modeled as lines, while joints
and wheels are simplified as points. Based on this model, the
method for modulating the speed of the wheels is discussed. In
the first, let us assume that , , and are the points of wheels
having contact with the elbow. Curve W is on the inner surface
of the pipeline connecting , , and . Based on the simplification, the plane where , , and exist is parallel to the

ROH AND CHOI: DIFFERENTIAL-DRIVE IN-PIPE ROBOT FOR MOVING INSIDE URBAN GAS PIPELINES

Fig. 17. Modulation of velocities of wheels. (a) Trajectories of wheels.

(b) Relations between the robot and the elbow.

one perpendicular to the central axis of the robot. Here, the parameter , representing the axial posture of the robot, is introintroduced previously. is
duced, which is quite similar to
the angle between two planes, where the one includes the point
on Curve W closest to the axis and the central axis of robot,
and the other is defined as the one including the point and
the central axis of the robot. Assuming that the whole body of
the robot is located in the elbow, the distance between the
plane and the plane including Curve W is , when the overall
length of the robot is represented as . Thus, the position vectors of , , and from the origin can be represented as

(4)
and the vectors from the

axis will be

(5)
Here, all the components are zero, because the vectors are
, Arc
, and Arc
orthogonal to the axis. When Arc
represent the paths traveled by driving wheels, velocities of the
,
, and
, and thus, we
wheels are proportional to
have the velocity ratios as follows:

(6)

Fig. 18. Results of numerical computations. (a) Curve W and Curve C

according to . (b) Changes in the length of wheeled legs. (c) Comparisons of
wheels velocities.

Unknown variables , , and

in (6) can be computed if
the equation for Curve W is obtained (calculation procedures
can be referred to in the Appendix).
As the results of calculations, we can get Curve W as shown
reprein Fig. 18(a). Curve C is the trajectory of the point
sented in (33), depending on . The distance between the central axis of the robot and , as depicted in Fig. 18(b), varies with
because is not fixed.
,
, and
are shown in
,
, and
are comFig. 18(c), as well. In Fig. 19,
,
, and
calculated in Fig. 15.
pared with velocities
is compared with
according to the axial
Especially,
posture angles and , as shown in Fig. 19(a), and their raand
tios are displayed in Fig. 19(b) after normalizing with
, respectively. Comparing
with
, it is
is not exactly equal
noted that in the maximum of
to
in the maximum
. Also, the longer the overall
length of the robot becomes, the larger an inconsistency exists.
When the overall length is zero, the maximum ratio of the velocity is 1.5, and the radio is 1.8 in the case of MRINSPECT IV,
as shown in Fig. 19(b).

V. CONTROL OF IN-PIPE ROBOT IN THE BRANCH

Controlling the movements of the robot in the branch is more
difficult than in the elbow, because the geometry of the branch
can not be expressed as closed-form equations and additional
considerations are required, depending on the direction of
movement. In this section, we propose an intuitive way of

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ROBOTICS, VOL. 21, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2005

Fig. 21.

Constraint space in the branch.

Fig. 22.

Characteristic features of movement in the branch.

Fig. 19. Comparisons of velocities according to the axial posture angle of the
robot. (a) Velocities of wheels. (b) Velocity ratios of wheels.

Fig. 23. Movement path in the branch and corresponding regions.

(a) Movement path. (b) Corresponding change of cross sections.

Fig. 20.

Geometrical analysis of the branch.

controlling the robot based on the geometric analysis of the

branch.
A. Geometric Analysis and Behavior of In-Pipe Robot in the
Branch
As shown in Fig. 20, a branch can be considered to be built by
putting together several patches with simple geometrical shapes,

such as elbows, straight pipelines, and flat patches. The flat

patch, called the V-shaped area in this paper, is located between
the elbows, as shown in Fig. 20. It can be noted that it is too
complicated to get a mathematical expression for the geometry
of the branch. The characteristic situations the robot experiences
on moving in the branch are briefly illustrated in Fig. 21. The
space in the branch can be divided into four regions with bound,
,
, and
.
is
aries, such as
means
the end of the region with the regular diameter ,
represents the region where the
the intermediate one, and
cross-section expands infinitely, as illustrated in Fig. 21.

ROH AND CHOI: DIFFERENTIAL-DRIVE IN-PIPE ROBOT FOR MOVING INSIDE URBAN GAS PIPELINES

Fig. 24. Paths of turning depending on the entrance.

Fig. 25.

Paths of turning according to the axial posture.

is the center line of the branch. On entering the branch, the diameter of the pipeline initially does not change a lot until the
after passing through the
front wheel set reaches the line
line
. The robot still cannot turn in this region, regardless
of the difference of wheel speeds. When the front wheel set ap, the diameter of the pipeline changes
proaches the line
considerably, and the robot goes straight. However, it can not
still turn actively because the front wheel set has contact with the
inner surface of the pipeline, and the rear wheel set is entirely
constrained in the inner surface of the pipeline. In this situation,
wheels just slip on the inner surfaces of the pipeline whenever it
tries to turn with differences of the wheel velocities. This space
is called the preliminary space, because the robot is ready to
turn or drive forward. When the front wheel set is close to the
line
, either one or two wheels placed in the region, called
the turn drive space, loses contact with the inner surface of the
pipeline. This space is called the drive choice space because the
robot is able to choose the direction of movement, e.g., turning
or going forward. It can turn toward the designated direction if
the speeds of the wheels are adequately modulated.
Though the method in the elbow may be partly employed
on traveling through the branch, there are several characteristic
features requiring the method dedicated to the branch as follows.
1) As the robot proceeds to turn in the branch, the front
wheel set and the rear wheel set may be folded or unfolded, respectively, as shown in Fig. 22. Thus, light slips
in the contact points are inevitable, which are more severe in the V-shaped area.
2) As shown in Fig. 22, some of the wheels lose contact
with the wall, and the assumption that six wheels have
contact with the wall in the branch is not valid any more.

Fig. 26. Strategy for turning in the branch. (a) Basic idea. (b) Determination
of turning direction. (c) Relation between axial posture and rotational speed.

3) As shown in Fig. 23, the robot meets a wide variety of

cross-sections when it turns in the branch, which is not
in the case of the elbow. Depending on the direction of
turning, the influence of gravity changes, and the paths
of turning change accordingly. In Fig. 23, the paths of
and Curve
turning are simulated, where Curve
are the paths according to the directions of gravity, such
and
, respectively.
as
4) The paths of turning are not deterministic, and change
considerably depending on the direction of entrance,
for
as illustrated in Fig. 24. For example, Curve

10

Fig. 27.

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ROBOTICS, VOL. 21, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2005

Outline of experimental system setup.

entering from the side opening is much different from

in the case of the middle one.
Curve
5) The paths of turning change depending on the axial posture of the robot as well. Two typical paths, Curve
and Curve
, with different axial posture angles, are
simulated in Fig. 25.
The characteristic features aforementioned imply that the
robot basically should be controlled according to the method
different from that of the elbow when it travels in the branch.
The paths of movement in the elbow are deterministic, because
they are produced by the wheels of the robot while they keep
contact with the inner wall of the elbow. Those in the branch,
however, are not deterministic, because the wheels not only
slide, but some of them do not keep contact with the wall at
times.
B. Computation of Wheel Velocities in the Branch
Because it is impossible to find the deterministic paths of
turning in the branch, a strategy different from that of the elbow
is required. As explained in Fig. 26, the proposed method, called
triggering of turning method, modulates velocities just by using
the direction of movement without calculating the paths of the
wheels.
In Fig. 26(a), , , and denote the points of contacts. As, and
suming that the speed at the point is a finite speed of
speeds at and are zero, respectively, the robot turns around
the vector made by connecting the points and , as illustrated
in Fig. 26(a). The triggering of turning method is the generalization of this idea. Assuming that is the point closest to the
direction of turning among the three contact points on turning
at the point is set to
of the robot, the velocity of the wheel
be zero. Using a sensor such as the CCD camera, the angle
between the axis and wheels is already known. If the desired
is given, the velocities of wheels
rotational speed of the robot
and
are computed accordingly. In calculating the
such as
velocities, as illustrated in Fig. 26(b), the rotational speed
is
and ,
derived as the summation of the rotational speeds
respectively, such as
(7)

Fig. 28.

User interface. (a) CCD image for control. (b) Control software.

, we have

From trigonometric relations, when

(8)
Rearranging it yields the magnitudes of

and

, such as
(9)
(10)

In the case where

, the robot turns around the vector
made by connecting the points and , similar to the situation
, the robot
illustrated in Fig. 26(a), and in the case of
goes around the vector made by connecting the points and .
Thus, as shown in Fig. 26(c), we can set
or
,

ROH AND CHOI: DIFFERENTIAL-DRIVE IN-PIPE ROBOT FOR MOVING INSIDE URBAN GAS PIPELINES

11

Fig. 30. Navigation in the elbow. (a) Robot in the transparent elbow. (b) Test
for drive performance in the elbow.

Fig. 29. Testbeds. (a) Testbed for preliminary experiment. (b) Testbed for
advanced experiment.

respectively (Curve
in Fig. 25 is the path of the robot when
or
). Consequently, (9) and (10) are the
equations comprehensively applicable in the range of
, and the magnitude of linear velocities at contact points
and are computed as
(11)
(12)
Also, since
and
are the orthogonal vectors to the contact points and shown in Fig. 26, they are
(13)
Thus, the following equation is obtained:

Fig. 31.

Comparison with straight drive and turn drive in the branch.

cording to (15), where only the ratio between speeds matters,

not the absolute ones.
The speed modulation by the proposed method should be employed only in the drive choice space, and does not work in the
for turning
preliminary space. Also, it is effective to set
successfully, because the drive choice space is too narrow and
, as shown in
the robot easily passes over this region if
Fig. 26.
When all the speeds of the wheels are the same, the robot goes
and Curve
in
straight along the paths, such as Curve
Figs. 23 and 25, though a little difference exists, depending on
the direction of gravity and the axial posture of the robot.

(14)
VI. EXPERIMENTS

Consequently, we have
(15)
Therefore, if the direction of turning represented with is specified, the robot can turn by modulating the speeds of wheels ac-

To confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method, several tests have been performed. In the first, the system setup is
briefly described, and experimental procedures are introduced
with results.

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ROBOTICS, VOL. 21, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2005

Fig. 32. Classification of turn drive according to the placement with respect to the direction of gravity. (a) Turn drive from the side entrance. (b) Turn drive from
the middle entrance.

A. Outline of Experimental Setup

As shown in Fig. 27, MRINSPECT IV is controlled by a
personal computer and its power is supplied via a tether cable
externally. An operator controls the robot with a joystick and a
keyboard using the images from the CCD camera transmitted
through the tether cable. In most cases, the robot moves autonomously, and the operator chooses only the direction of
movement in the branch by observing the CCD images on
which the angle for choosing the direction of movement is
displayed, as shown in Fig. 28(a). The left window of Fig. 28(b)
is for steering, and it helps the operator choose the direction
of steering in the branch according to the axial posture of
the robot. The right window displays the data and the state
information of the robot in realtime. All the programs were
coded with C++.
The experiments were carried out in the test bed shown in
Fig. 29, where Fig. 29(a) was for the preliminary test, and
Fig. 29(b) was for the experiments in fittings. For ease of
observation, pipelines were made of transparent plastics with
several off-the-shelf parts, and various experiments could be
performed by reconfiguring the components of the testbed.
B. Experiments in Elbows
Fig. 30(a) represents the experimental scenes when the robot
moved along the elbow. Its maximum speed of movement
was 0.15 m/s while controlling velocities. Fig. 30(b) shows
the second experiment where the robot traveled in the special
pipelines composed of three elbows continuously welded. To
prove the effectiveness of the proposed method, the power consumption was measured when the control method was applied
or not, respectively. When the velocity was not controlled,
about 10% more power was consumed, and it is because the
robot was overloaded due to slippage of wheels. It can be

concluded that the speed modulation of the differential-drive

robot is very important for moving in the elbow.
C. Experiments in Branches
Movements in the branch are largely classified into two cases,
such as straight drive and turn drive, as depicted in Fig. 31. The
straight drive is simple to realize, compared with the turn drive,
since all the driving wheels just need to have the same speed.
The turn drive in the branch is largely classified into two cases,
as shown in Fig. 32, according to the entrance of the branch the
robot approaches. Also, two cases in Fig. 32 are divided into ten
subcases according to the relative placement of the branch with
respect to the direction of gravity. In fact, the turn drive is possible without considering the direction of gravity in the Cases 1
and 2, while the direction of gravity should be taken into consideration in the other cases. In Figs. 33 and 34, the experimental
scenes for these cases are shown. All the cases have been proven
to be successful. It has been shown that the turn drive could be
accomplished just by the triggering force generating the driving
momentum along the commanded direction.
VII. SUPPLEMENTARY DISCUSSIONS
In this section, several additional considerations in the design
are discussed.
A. Number of Driving Modules
In general, the differential-drive robot should have more than
three driving modules in order to move in the pipelines, because
the robot with two driving modules cannot turn in the branch
under the influence of gravity, and also cannot choose the direction for steering. The robot with four driving modules has
characteristic features different from MRINSPECT IV. Usually,
only three driving modules among four have contact with the
inner wall, as illustrated in Fig. 35(b), in the elbow. As shown in

ROH AND CHOI: DIFFERENTIAL-DRIVE IN-PIPE ROBOT FOR MOVING INSIDE URBAN GAS PIPELINES

Fig. 33.

13

Experiments on turning in the branch. (a) Case 1. (b) Case 3. (c) Case 5. (d) Case 7. (e) Case 9.

Fig. 35(c), all the modules have contact with the wall only when
,
,
, and
. Otherwise, three of the driving
modules give driving forces, while the other module idles or
slips.
In the branch, although the driving force increases as the
number of active modules having contact with the wall does,
a critical aspect is not the force, but the triggering action,
as mentioned in Section V. Therefore, the mechanism with
three driving modules is the configuration of the mechanism recommended.

and the size of the robot. The worst placement of the robot is
, as illustrated in Fig. 36(a). In this
when it is inclined with
situation, two different cases can be considered: 1) the diameter
is relatively smaller than the height , and both
of the robot
and
are located on the region of the
ends of the robot
straight pipeline and 2) both ends of the robot are included in
the elbow. Depending on the situation, constraint equations are
derived to determine the size of the robot [12]. In the case of 1),
has the range of
(16)

B. Size of In-Pipe Robot

Pipeline configurations give geometric limitations, and the
size of a robot should be determined to satisfy the limitations. In
the elbow, the robot can be modeled as a cylinder, and relations
can be derived between the diameter of the elbow, the curvature,

The length of the robot

is given by
(17)

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ROBOTICS, VOL. 21, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2005

Fig. 34. Experiments on turning in the branch. (a) Case 2. (b) Case 4. (c) Case 6. (d) Case 8. (e) Case 10.

Since is represented as in Fig. 36 ( is

in the urban
gas pipelines, but
is set to be
for comparing with the
is rewritten by
branch), the length of the robot
(18)
In the case of 2), the range of

is obtained by
(19)

Thus, the length of the robot

becomes
(20)

and rewritten by
(21)

Equations (16), (18), (19), and (21) provide the basic constraint
equation so that the robot can move in pipelines connected with
elbows. The details can be referred to in [12].
In the branch, the size of the robot determines whether turning
is possible or not. For example, when the length of the robot is
a little longer in Fig. 36(b), the robot cannot turn in the branch
although the robot has the proper size for moving in the elbow.
When the front wheel set of the robot is placed in the branch and
the rear wheel set has contact with the inner side of the straight
section of the pipeline, the rear wheel set is confined absolutely
to the straight section of the pipeline. The rear wheel set is kept
from steering, although the robot tries to turn. Thus, to turn in the
, from
branch, the rear wheel set should pass over the line
which is the area of the branch. The robot should start turning
before the front wheel set reaches the line
. If the front
and the robot tries turning,
wheel set passes over the line

ROH AND CHOI: DIFFERENTIAL-DRIVE IN-PIPE ROBOT FOR MOVING INSIDE URBAN GAS PIPELINES

15

as the CCD wheel set, extends the boundary of turning to the line
. Therefore, the length of the robot should be shorter than
. On the other hand, the robot could turn easily, but could
not drive straight because it would be isolated in the turn drive
space if the length of the robot is shorter than the diameter
of the pipeline. Thus, the length of the robot
for negotiating
branches is given by
(22)
Consequently, to determine the useful length of the robot in the
elbow and the branch, (18), (21), and (22) should be incorporated. From (18), (21), and (22), can be determined with (22),
in Fig. 36 is flexible.
since
VIII. CONCLUSIONS

Fig. 35. Features of four driving modules. (a) 3-D view. (b) Contact of three
wheels. (c) Contact of four wheels.

In this paper, the issues of the mechanical construction

of MRINSPECT IV and its control, mainly focused on the
movement in fittings such as the elbow and the branch, were
discussed. According to the experiments, MRINSPECT IV
could navigate almost all kinds of pipeline configurations,
regardless of the effect of gravity, its postures, and the direction
of movement. Though the algorithms were described based
on MRINSPECT IV, the ideas can be generalized to other
robots. However, according to our experiences on this work,
the mechanism of the in-pipe robot should be adaptable to
the characteristic condition of the pipelines, and it is the preliminary requirement for successful movement. The use of a
general-purpose robot may not be possible in in-pipe applications. For that means, MRINSPECT IV has the possibility of
being used in practical applications, although it is still under
improvement through testing in field conditions.
APPENDIX
The equation of Curve W on which , , and exist, can be
obtained by using (2), because Curve W means that the value
of the coordinate in (2) is . In advance, Curve W can be
expressed with parameters and as the following equation:

(23)
According to (2), we get
(24)
Thus, the equation for Curve W is rewritten as follows:

Fig. 36. Size of the robot. (a) Size of the robot for negotiating the elbow.
(b) Size of the robot for negotiating the branch.

then separation and isolation will occur. However, the robot can
turn in the branch until the front wheel set reaches the line
if the body of the robot, except for the wheels, does not have
contact with the wall. It is because a supplementary device, such

(25)
According to (24), we have
(26)

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ROBOTICS, VOL. 21, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2005

Consequently, Curve W is expressed with a single parameter ,

such as

Thus, the positions of contact points ,

by

, and

(27)
can be written

(28)
(29)
(30)
, and
are s for , , and , respectively.
where ,
Also, the condition that the triangle made by , , and is an
equilateral triangle yields
(31)
where
,
,
. The
and
as the
solution of (31) makes it possible to represent
can be calculated from the parameters
function of . Also,
, , and , where is the only parameter sensed during the
navigation, while and are known. The relation of , , ,
and is obtained by solving the additional equation as follows:
(32)
where the position of the intersecting point between the central axis of the robot and the plane including Curve W is given
by
(33)
and the position

on the Curve W is obtained as

(34)

Although it is not easy to solve the nonlinear simultaneous equations of (31) and (30), the numerical calculation is applicable to
the case, as shown in Fig. 18.
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17

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Se-gon Roh received the B.S. and M.S. degrees

in mechanical engineering in 1997 and 1999, respectively, from Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon,
Korea, where he is currently working toward the
Ph.D. degree in mechatronics engineering.
His research interests include robotic design and
application of mobile robot.

Hyouk Ryeol Choi (M96) received the B.S. degree

from Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea, in
1984, the M.S. degree from the Korea Advanced
Technology of Science and Technology (KAIST),
Taejon, Korea, in 1986, and the Ph.D. degree from
the Pohang University of Science and Technology
(POSTECH), Pohang, Korea, in 1994.
Since 1995, he has been with Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, Korea, where he is currently a Professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering. He
was an Associate Engineer with LG Electronics Central Research Laboratory, Seoul, Korea, from 1986 to 1989. From 1993 to 1995,
he was with Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan, as a grantee of scholarship funds
from the Japanese Educational Administry. He visited the Advanced Institute of
Industrial Science Technology (AIST), Tsukuba, Japan, as a JSPS Fellow from
1999 to 2000. His interests include dexterous mechanisms, field applications of
robots, and artificial muscle actuators.