Development of a position control scheme for rotating sensor unit attached to in-pipe robot
In this article, we propose a position control scheme for the rotation axis of a rotating ultrasonic sensor unit with a position adjustment mechanism. The objective of the control is to adjust the position of the rotation axis of the ultrasonic sensor such that it can coincide with the center of a pipe. To realize the above objective, we provide a method to measure the vertical and horizontal positions of the rotation axis in a pipe. Using the measurements, we propose a position controller for the rotation axis. By carrying out experiments, we investigate the usefulness of the developed mechanism and the proposed position controller. As a result, it is shown that the proposed position control scheme ensures good performance.
in-pipe robot ultrasonic sensor thickness measurement of the pipe