pipe line inspection robot

hi guys,

Am planing to build a robot to check the cracks and leaks in the water pipe lines.

so the basic need is, it should travel minimum 1km. Am thinking of wired

communication between the base and robot. For this i don't know which protocol

to use. please suggest me some idea for this communication(wired or wireless).

Target to meet

1) Should travel min 1Km.


Environment

1) Pipe line can be metal,Plastic,and Cement.

2) It can be 5 to 10 feet under the ground.

Regards & Thanks
thomasplam

This is one strange project if you are a hobbyist. If this is a commercial project I can help you for 2500 EUR a month.. and that is cheap because I'm still a student.

So, if you can do wired communication over one kilometer you have several options. The physical interface should be differential. Ethernet or RS485 are probably the best options for wired communication but they have their limits.

If you're not navigating any major curves or other changes in direction, and you have more or less a "line of sight", you might try using 802.11g/n with directional yagi antennas on the robot and base-station. Another option might be to use a fiber optic comms system. Regardless of what communications method you use, have the robot tow a retrieval line behind it, just in case...

hi crosh,

thanks for your reply. curves will be there and line of sight is not possible.Seems fiber optic comms is too costly.Now am thinking of using Rs-485, data sheet they telling that 1.2km range,what is your opinion.

regards
thomasplam

hello misterT,

thanks for your reply,its not for any commercial purpose its just for hobby only for helping my friend who is a pwd contractor. am planing to use RS485(1.2km range).

regards
thomasplam

If it has the range, then use it; the only thing I would worry about, though, is your video feed (I assume you'll have one?) - I am not sure what the data rate for is RS-485 at its max length, but it probably won't be enough to support live video (that's just a guess, though - I haven't looked into this). You might be able to get a slow-scan pic every few seconds, though - if that's enough. Once again, make sure you have a way to pull the robot back out (you might be able to get a cable that would allow you to run RS-485, power, and a pull line - all rolled into one; it probably wouldn't be cheap, though).

Also - note how heavy the line will be per meter, because your robot at its limits will have to pull that much behind it (I'd imagine that 1.2km of RS-485 cable might be rather bulky). Finally, have you thought about cable management needs (coiling and uncoiling)? If you are going to use an electrical based hookup system, the best homebrew system I've seen so far has been this (for an underwater ROV): https://www.homebuiltrovs.com/hbrd3tether.html

Depending on the pipe width, you might want to mount the entire cable on the robot itself, and have -it- pay it out and reel it in (rather than dragging it behind) - but a 1.2km reel of RS-485 will likely be fairly bulky. This is one of the reasons why I mentioned fiber; while you could only support communications this way (you didn't say whether there would be on board or remote power to the robot, nor anything about video needs), the fiber would be fairly lightweight and easier to handle (though much more expensive, of course).