Sensors in reconfigurable modular robot for pipeline inspection: Design and tests of a prototype

Pipeline inspections are essential for an updated diagnosis in Oil and Gas Industry, but manual inspection in remote areas implies great expenses in the long term. Therefore, this process optimization requires autonomous and versatile systems, such as Self-reconfigurable Modular Robots (SMR). The SMR are autonomous machines with variable morphology, therefore they have the potential to deal with this kind of problem. Reorganizing its parts connectivities, SMR offer major flexibility and tolerance to failure with a low cost. This work aims to present a review of the most recent SMR and design a low cost Reconfigurable Modular Robot with embedded sensors suitable for pipelines inspection, which reports the presence of obstacles and the position/orientation of each robot in the system. At a typical scenario of leakage in pipelines, a self-reconfigurable modular robot reduces costs such as production loss, manual inspections, repairs and maintenance at pipelines. This area of robotics promises such a versatile system that in a near future it can change the processes automation of inspection, repair and maintenance at remote environments, as pipelines.