AUS students and faculty develop ‘in-pipe inspection robot’

Sharjah, UAE, 18 March 2018: A team of engineering students have developed an ‘in-pipe inspection robot’ for detection of leaks in pipelines, said Dr Mamoun Abdel-Hafez, Head of Mechanical Engineering, American University of Sharjah (AUS).

Sharing details of the project, Dr Abdel-Hafez said, “Based on a robust navigation and leak-detection algorithm, the project aims to navigate a pipeline inspection to detect defects in pipelines and pursue corrective maintenance accurately.”

He further said that the robot is fitted with a GPS, which is calibrated with inertial measurement sensors and encoders, and it can detect the length of the pipe. “These measurements are fused intelligently to obtain a continuous high-accuracy robot position,” he added.

Dr Abdel-Hafez added that the robot could also be customised for inspection of chilled-water piping systems, including deep cleaning of air conditioning ducts, and currently the team is designing a robot that can precisely detect faults in ducting systems.

He further added that the team took around three years to complete the project, and the current model is a third prototype, which has been through many iterations to arrive at the current high-integrity and manoeuvrability design.