  In-pipe robots are promising solutions for condition assessment, leak
detection, water quality monitoring in a variety of other tasks in pipeline
networks. Smart navigation is an extremely challenging task for these robots as
a result of highly uncertain and disturbing environment for operation. Wireless
communication to control these robots during operation is not feasible if the
pipe material is metal since the radio signals are destroyed in the pipe
environment, and hence, this challenge is still unsolved. In this paper, we
introduce a method for smart navigation for our previously designed in-pipe
robot [1] based on particle filtering and a two-phase motion controller. The
robot is given the map of the operation path with a novel approach and the
particle filtering determines the straight and non-straight configurations of
the pipeline. In the straight paths, the robot follows a linear quadratic
regulator (LQR) and proportional-integral-derivative (PID) based controller
that stabilizes the robot and tracks a desired velocity. In non-straight paths,
the robot follows the trajectory that a motion trajectory generator block plans
for the robot. The proposed method is a promising solution for smart navigation
without the need for wireless communication and capable of inspecting long
distances in water distribution systems.
