Hostname: page-component-f554764f5-nqxm9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-21T10:11:35.307Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Automatic travel of a mine hole robot adaptive to changes in hole diameters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 November 2024

Liang Ge ,
Le Zhang Open the ORCID record for Le Zhang [Opens in a new window] ,
Hao Li ,
Ziyang Fang ,
Lei Li  and
Xiaoting Xiao
Liang Ge
Affiliation:
School of Mechatronic Eng., Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu, China State Key Laboratory of Gas Disaster Detecting, Preventing and Emergency Controlling, Chongqing, China
Le Zhang
Affiliation:
School of Mechatronic Eng., Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu, China State Key Laboratory of Gas Disaster Detecting, Preventing and Emergency Controlling, Chongqing, China
Hao Li
Affiliation:
State Key Laboratory of Gas Disaster Detecting, Preventing and Emergency Controlling, Chongqing, China
Ziyang Fang
Affiliation:
School of Mechatronic Eng., Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu, China State Key Laboratory of Gas Disaster Detecting, Preventing and Emergency Controlling, Chongqing, China
Lei Li
Affiliation:
School of Mechatronic Eng., Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu, China State Key Laboratory of Gas Disaster Detecting, Preventing and Emergency Controlling, Chongqing, China
Xiaoting Xiao*
Affiliation:
School of Mechatronic Eng., Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu, China College of Electric and Info., Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu, China
*
Corresponding author: Xiaoting Xiao; Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In response to the complex and challenging task of long-distance inspection of small-diameter and variable-diameter mine holes, this paper presents a design for an adaptive small-sized mine hole robot. First, focusing on the environment of small-diameter mine holes, the paper analyzes the robot’s functions and overall structural framework. A two-wheeled wall-pressing robot with good mobility, arranged in a straight line, is designed. Furthermore, an adaptive variable-diameter method is devised, which involves constructing an adaptive variable-diameter model and proposing a control method based on position and force estimators, enabling the robot to perceive external forces. Lastly, to verify the feasibility of the structural design and adaptive variable-diameter method, performance tests and analyses are conducted on the robot’s mobility and adaptive variable-diameter capabilities. Experimental results demonstrate that the robot can move within small-diameter mine holes at any inclination angle, with a maximum horizontal crawling speed of 3.96 m/min. By employing the adaptive variable-diameter method, the robot can smoothly navigate convex platform obstacles and slope obstacles in mine holes with diameters ranging from 70 mm to 100 mm, achieving the function of adaptive variable-diameter within 2 s. Thus, it can meet the requirements of moving inside mine holes under complex conditions such as steep slopes and small and variable diameters.

Keywords

small-sized mine hole robotstructural designmethod of adaptive to changes in hole diametersvariable diameter hole
Type
Research Article
Information
Robotica , Volume 42 , Issue 10 , October 2024 , pp. 3348 - 3362
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Fan, L. and Liu, S. M., “Numerical prediction of in situ horizontal stress evolution in coalbed methane reservoirs by considering both poroelastic and sorption induced strain effects,” Int. J. Rock Mech. Min. Sci. 104, 156–164 (2018).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yang, S., Li, H., Ma, L. and Bai, W., “An automatic method for discontinuity recognition in coal-measure strata borehole images[J],” IEEE Access 9(1), 105072–105081 (2021).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brook, M., Hebblewhite, B. and Mitra, R., “Coal mine roof rating (CMRR), rock mass rating (RMR) and strata control: Carborough Downs Mine, Bowen Basin, Australia,” Int. J. Min. Sci. Technol. 30(2), 225–234 (2020).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dai, F., Li, B., Xu, N. W., Meng, G. T., Wu, J. Y. and Fan, Y. L., “Microseismic monitoring of the left bank slope at the Baihetan Hydropower Station, China,” Rock Mech. Rock Eng. 50(1), 225–232 (2017).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zou, X., Wang, C., Wang, Y. and Song, H., “Morphological feature description method of structural surface in borehole image during in-situ instrumentation,” Rock Mech. and Rock Eng. 53(7), 2947–2956 (2020).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ori, I. and Zarrouk, D., “Analysis of climbing in circular and rectangular pipes with a reconfigurable sprawling robot,” Mech. Mach. Theory 173, 104832 (2022).Google Scholar
Moriyama, S., “Traction force estimator of tracked mobile robot supported by the back-to- back test,” IEEJ Trans. Electr. Electron. Eng. 14(6), 948–953 (2019).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Inazawa, M., Takemori, T. Tanaka, M. andMatsuno, F., “Unified approach to the motion design for a snake robot negotiating complicated pipe structures,” Front. Robot. AI 8, 629368 (2021).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Selvarajan, A., Kumar, A., Sethu, D. and Ramlan, M. A. B., “Design and Development of a Snake-Robot for Pipeline Inspection,” In: IEEE Student Conference on Research and Development (SCOReD), IEEE (2019).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peng, H., Wang, J. and Wang, S., “Coordinated motion control for a wheel-leg robot with speed consensus strategy,” IEEE/ASME Trans. Mechatron. 25(3), 1366–1376 (2020).Google Scholar
Yan, H., Wang, L., Li, P., Wang, z., Yang, x. and Hou, x., “Research on passing ability and climbing performance of pipeline plugging robots in curved pipelines,” IEEE Access 8, 173666–173680 (2020).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gunatilake, A., Kodagoda, S. and Thiyagarajan, K., “Battery-free UHF-RFID sensors-based SLAM for in-pipe robot perception,” IEEE Sens. J. 22(20), 20019–20026 (2022). doi: 10.1109/JSEN.2022.3204682.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGregor, A., Dobie, G., Pearson, N. R., MacLeod, C. N. and Gachagan, A., “Determining position and orientation of a 3-wheel robot on a pipe using an accelerometer,” Ieee Sens. J. 20(9), 5061–5071 (2020). doi: 10.1109/JSEN.2020.2964619.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, S., Guan, W., Hu, H., Huang, C., Gong, W. and Xu, X., “Design and Realization of Water Supply Pipeline Robot Based on Propeller,” In: China automation congress (CAC), Beijing, China, pp. 6456–6461 (2021). doi: 10.1109/CAC53003.2021.9728457.Google Scholar
Cardona, M., Cerrato, J. and García, E., “Design and Simulation of a Mobile Robot for Pipeline Inspection,” In: 2022 IEEE Central America and Panama Student Conference (CONESCAPAN), San Salvador, El Salvador (2022) pp. 1–6. doi: 10.1109/CONESCAPAN56456.2022.9959592 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mishra, D., Agrawal, K. K., Abbas, A., Srivastava, R.pp. Yadav, R. S., PIG [Pipe inspection Gauge]: An artificial dustman for cross country pipelines. Proc. Comput. Sci. 152 (2019), 333–340. ISSN 1877-0509.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Valls Miro, J., Ulapane, N., Shi, L., Hunt, D. and Behrens, M. and, Robotic pipeline wall thickness evaluation for dense nondestructive testing inspection, J. Field Robot. 35(8), 1293–1310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liu, G., Mo, H., Li, C., Li, G. and Li, L., “Design of A Negative Pressure Adsorption Pipeline Robot for Omni-directional Mobility[J],” In: 2019 IEEE International Conference on Mechatronics and Automation (ICMA), Tianjin, China (2019) pp. 1448–1452, doi: 10.1109/ICMA.2019.8816591 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Takemori, T., Tanaka, M. and Matsuno, F., “Adaptive helical rolling of a snake robot to a straight pipe with irregular cross-sectional shape,” IEEE Trans. Robot. 39(1), 437–451 (2023).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Virgala, I., Kelemen, M., Boek, P., Bobovský, Z., Hagara, M., Prada, E., Oščádal, P. and Varga, M., “Investigation of snake robot locomotion possibilities in a pipe,” Symmetry 12(939), ( 2020).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kakogawa, A., Oka, Y. and Ma, S., “Multi-link Articulated Wheeled In-pipe Robot with Underactuated Twisting Joints,” In: IEEE International Conference on Mechatronics and Automation (ICMA), IEEE (2018).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guo, D., Yuan, Z., Bao, S., Yuan, J. Ma, S. and Du, L., “Visualized Small-Sized Pipeline Model Building Using Multilink-articulated Wheeled In-pipe Inspection Robot,” In: 2021 IEEE International Conference on Real-time Computing and Robotics (RCAR), IEEE (2021) pp. 492–497.Google Scholar
Gao, M., Huang, M., Tang, K., Lang, X. and Gao, J., “Design, analysis, and control of a multilink magnetic wheeled pipeline robot,” IEEE Access, 10, doi:67168–67180 (2022). doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2022.3185048 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moriyama, S.-I., “Traction force estimator of tracked mobile robot supported by the back-to-back test,” IEEJ Trans. Electr. Electron. Eng. 14(6), 948–953 (2019).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zheng, T., Wang, X., Li, H., Zhao, C., Jiang, Z., Huang, Q. and Ceccarelli, M., “Design of a robot for inspecting the multishape pipeline systems,” IEEE/ASME Trans. Mechatron. 27(99), 1–11 (2022).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhang, L. and Wang, X., “Stable Motion Analysis and Verification of a Radial Adjustable Pipeline Robot,” In: 2016 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics (ROBIO), Qingdao, China (2016) pp. 1023–1028. doi: 10.1109/ROBIO.2016.7866459 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liu, Y., Dai, X., Wang, Z., Bi, Q., Song, R., Zhao, J. and Li, Y., “A tensegrity-based inchworm-like robot for crawling in pipes with varying diameters,” IEEE Robot. Autom. Lett. 7(4), 1–8 (2022).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tang, Z., Li, Z., Ma, S., Chen, Y. and Yang, Y., “Structure Design of Adaptive Pipeline Detection Robot,” In: 2021 7th International Conference on Control, Automation and Robotics (ICCAR), Singapore (2021) pp. 136–140. doi: 10.1109/ICCAR52225.2021.9463457 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zheng, D., “Pipeline Robot Based on Umbrella-shaped Flexible Expansion,” In: 2021 IEEE Asia-Pacific Conference on Image Processing, Electronics and Computers (IPEC), Dalian, China (2021) pp. 815–818. doi: 10.1109/IPEC51340.2021.9421329 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elankavi, R., Dinakaran, D., Doss, A., Chetty, R. and Ramya, M.M., “Design and motion planning of a wheeled type pipeline inspection robot,” JRC 3(4), 415–430 (2022).CrossRefGoogle Scholar