CN-117146100-B - No-mooring snake-like winding type flexible pipe climbing robot and application

CN117146100BCN 117146100 BCN117146100 BCN 117146100BCN-117146100-B

Abstract

The application discloses a tethered snake-like winding type flexible pipe climbing robot and application thereof, and aims to solve the problems of complex structure, large volume and limited use in certain application occasions of the existing rigid crawling robot. Inspired by the winding crawling motion of the sapling snake, the motion of the snake is simplified into three parts, and the mooring-free snake-like winding flexible climbing pipe robot is further provided. The body structure comprises a body telescopic actuating unit and flexible grasping actuating units arranged at two ends of the body telescopic actuating unit. In this structure, two flexible grip actuation units are used as the head and tail, and one body telescoping actuation unit is used as the body. According to the application, the self-carried mobile power supply is used for driving the flexible robot body, so that no tethered driving is realized, the flexible gripping actuating unit rotates around the first positioning hole to form another crawling mode, the crawling function in the pipe is realized, and a new method is provided for the development of the crawling flexible robot in the outer pipe of the future pipe.

Inventors

ZANG HONGBIN
WANG WENWEI
PENG LICHEN
PENG JITAO
WANG ZHIMAO

Assignees

西南科技大学

Dates

Publication Date: 20260512
Application Date: 20230831

Claims (7)

1. The mooring-free snake-like winding type flexible pipe climbing robot is characterized by comprising a flexible gripping actuating unit, a body telescopic actuating unit and a control unit, wherein the flexible gripping actuating units are in a group; the flexible gripping actuating unit comprises an actuating motor, a fixed disc, an actuating stranded wire disc, a positioning piece, a linear elastic supporting piece, a wire coil component, an actuating linear driving piece, a first guide piece and a second guide piece, wherein the number of the first guide piece and the number of the second guide piece are N respectively; The actuating motor is connected with the fixed disc, the fixed disc can provide support for the actuating motor, a first through hole matched with the actuating motor is formed in the fixed disc, a rotating shaft of the actuating motor can pass through the first through hole, and the actuating stranded wire disc is arranged on the rotating shaft of the actuating motor and can drive the actuating stranded wire disc to rotate; The positioning piece is connected with the fixed disc, the fixed disc can provide support for the positioning piece, and a first positioning hole matched with the linear elastic support piece is formed in the positioning piece; one end of the linear elastic support piece is connected with the tail end connecting wire disc, the linear elastic support piece sequentially penetrates through a first connecting hole on the middle section connecting wire disc, and the other end of the linear elastic support piece is connected with the first positioning hole; One end of the actuating linear driving piece is connected with the tail end connecting wire disc, the actuating linear driving piece sequentially passes through a second connecting hole on the middle connecting wire disc, and the other end of the actuating linear driving piece is connected with the actuating stranded wire disc; The linear elastic support piece passes through the first guide piece, the first guide piece is respectively positioned between the tail end connecting wire disc and the adjacent middle section connecting wire disc and between the adjacent two middle section connecting wire discs, the actuating linear driving piece passes through the second guide piece, and the second guide piece is respectively positioned between the tail end connecting wire disc and the adjacent middle section connecting wire disc and between the adjacent two middle section connecting wire discs; The tail end connecting wire disc, the linear elastic supporting piece, the first guide piece, the actuating linear driving piece, the second guide piece and the middle section connecting wire disc jointly form a spiral driving claw; The body telescopic actuating unit comprises a telescopic spring, a telescopic linear driving piece, a telescopic driving mechanism and a linear driving piece limiting disc, wherein two ends of the telescopic spring are respectively connected with the flexible gripping actuating units, and the two flexible gripping actuating units can be relatively closed or separated through the telescopic spring; The telescopic driving mechanism comprises a telescopic motor, a telescopic speed reducer and a telescopic stranded wire disc matched with the telescopic speed reducer, the telescopic speed reducer is connected with a rotating shaft of the telescopic motor, and the telescopic stranded wire disc is arranged on an output shaft of the telescopic speed reducer; The actuating motors of the two flexible gripping actuating units are respectively marked as a first actuating motor and a second actuating motor, wherein the telescopic motor is connected with the first actuating motor and can provide support for the telescopic motor; the linear driving piece limiting discs are B, B is a natural number and B is more than or equal to 3, the linear driving piece limiting discs are equidistantly distributed between the telescopic motor and the second actuating motor, and the linear driving piece limiting discs at two ends are respectively connected with the telescopic motor and the second actuating motor; One end of the telescopic linear driving piece is connected with a telescopic stranded wire disc on the telescopic motor, the other end of the telescopic linear driving piece sequentially penetrates through a central small hole on the linear driving piece limiting disc and is connected with the second actuating motor, and the telescopic motor can drive the telescopic linear driving piece to be folded or unfolded through forward or reverse rotation so as to achieve folding or separation of the two flexible gripping actuating units; The actuating motor and the telescopic motor are respectively connected with the control unit.
2. The untethered snake-like wound flexible climbing tube robot of claim 1, wherein the first and second guides are sleeves made of rubber or plastic materials, respectively.
3. The untethered snake-like wound flexible pipe climbing robot of claim 1, wherein the linear elastic support is detachably connected to the first positioning hole.
4. The tethered snake-like wound flexible climbing tube robot of claim 1, wherein one end of the telescopic linear driving member passes through a central small hole of a linear driving member limiting disc connected with the second actuating motor, then sequentially passes through a central small hole of a linear driving member limiting disc between the telescopic motor and the second actuating motor, and finally is connected with a telescopic stranded wire disc on the telescopic motor.
5. The mooring-free snake-like winding type flexible climbing pipe robot according to claim 4, wherein the tail end connecting wire disc, the linear elastic supporting piece, the first guide piece and the middle section connecting wire disc form a first supporting component, wherein in the first supporting component, the linear elastic supporting piece plays a supporting role, and the linear elastic supporting piece is arranged in the first guide piece and enables the first supporting component to be in a spiral spring shape; The tail end connecting wire disc, the actuating linear driving piece, the second guiding piece and the middle connecting wire disc form a second driving assembly; The actuating linear driving piece of the second driving assembly is positioned on the inner side of the linear elastic supporting piece of the first supporting assembly; In the second driving assembly, one end of the actuating linear driving piece is arranged on an actuating stranded wire disc, and the actuating stranded wire disc can drive the actuating linear driving piece to retract or open through forward or reverse rotation so as to grasp or loosen the spiral driving claw.
6. The tethered snake-like wound flexible tube climbing robot of any of claims 1-5, further comprising a mobile power source electrically connected to the control unit.
7. Use of the tethered snake-like wound flexible pipe climbing robot according to any of the preceding claims 1-6, characterized in that the flexible pipe climbing robot is used for climbing of poles or pipes.

Description

No-mooring snake-like winding type flexible pipe climbing robot and application Technical Field The application relates to the field of machinery, in particular to the field of flexible robots, in particular to a mooring-free snake-like winding type flexible pipe climbing robot and application. More specifically, the application provides the snake-like winding type flexible pipe climbing robot which can meet the pipe climbing requirement in a complex environment and has better adaptability by taking the winding and crawling movements of the sapling snakes as references. Background The climbing robot has great application potential in special environments, and thus continuous research of researchers is attracted. For example, chinese patent CN113183143B discloses a pipe climbing robot, which comprises a plurality of pneumatic muscles distributed in array, and further comprises a PCB circuit board and a permanent magnet fixing board, wherein the PCB circuit board and the permanent magnet fixing board are sleeved on the pneumatic muscles and are arranged at intervals, a plurality of magnetic induction sensors distributed in array are installed on the PCB circuit board, permanent magnets corresponding to the magnetic induction sensors are arranged on the permanent magnet fixing board, and the central positions of the magnetic induction sensors and the permanent magnets which are oppositely arranged are coaxial. Chinese patent CN103795289B discloses a pipeline crawling robot, the upper movable arm I and the upper movable arm II with cross sections in the shape of transverse J are arranged opposite to each other, their long ends are respectively provided with an upward protrusion I and a protrusion II, and two end faces of at least one group of transverse piezoelectric stack actuators I are fastened with inner side faces of the protrusions I and II. Chinese patent CN102975783B discloses a single-wheel pipe-climbing robot comprising a driving device, an arm-holding device and a parallel adjusting device, wherein the driving device is arranged in the middle, and the arm-holding device and the parallel adjusting device are symmetrically arranged on both sides. The driving device comprises a moving wheel with a built-in motor, a steering mechanism and a matrix flat plate for placing the control device and the flaw detection instrument, the steering mechanism enables the pipe climbing robot to move 360 degrees around a pipeline, the arm holding device can adjust the length of the arm holding device according to the diameter of the pipeline, the pipe climbing robot can reliably run on the pipeline, and the parallel adjusting device enables the matrix flat plate to be parallel to the pipeline on which the robot is crawling all the time. Chinese patent CN108869950B discloses a flexible crawling robot for pipeline, comprising a front and a rear travelling mechanism and a steering mechanism, wherein the steering mechanism is arranged between the front and the rear travelling mechanisms, the front and the rear travelling mechanisms comprise a machine base, a main motor, an auxiliary motor, a worm, a support disc, a screw rod, a nut, a spring, a sliding sleeve, a baffle ring, a guide rod, a swing arm assembly and a connecting rod, and the swing arm assembly comprises an arm support, a chain, a worm wheel set and a gear set. The steering mechanism comprises a motor, a cam, a deflector rod, a supporting plate, a main spring and a connecting piece, wherein the connecting piece penetrates through the cam and the supporting plate and then is connected with a front travelling mechanism and a rear travelling mechanism. The motor pushes and pulls the connecting piece through the cam and the deflector rod to force the front travelling mechanism and the rear travelling mechanism to deflect mutually. The inventor has found that existing rigid crawling robots have good performance in non-structural environments, such as ladder, wall, pipe, pole, etc., but they generally rely on complex mechanisms consisting of rigid actuators and transmission components, and the resulting design suffers from several disadvantages of segmentation, inflexibility, complexity, bulkiness, high cost, etc. In some special occasions, such as in a narrow environment or under the condition that the inner diameter and the outer diameter of a pipeline are smaller, the existing rigid crawling robot is limited by factors such as the size, the weight and the like of the rigid crawling robot, and the application range is limited. Although the flexible robot can realize crawling and crawling movement through coordination of a plurality of flexible actuating mechanisms, the flexible robot is difficult to crawl on the inner surface or the outer surface of the rod piece and the pipe, and particularly has the crawling capability on the inner surface and the outer surface of the pipe. Meanwhile, most flexible robots are connected with external power sources through wires or