Citation :

Rakesh Rajendran, Hamsadhwani Vivekanandan, Meena.K, Karthick.M, Shivakumar Natarajan, Maghesh Kumar. D, "Design and Modelling of Pipe Climbing Robot (PCR) using Coppeliasim and Ensuring its Stability using Edge Impulse Software," International Journal of Mechanical Engineering, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 28-38, 2026. Crossref, https://doi.org/10.14445/23488360/IJME-V13I4P103

Abstract

The oil and gas pipes in ships and marine oil refineries are prone to rapid corrosion.The leakage of these pipelines either occurs naturally or artificially due to man-made errors during usage. Hence, it is mandatory to have continuous monitoring over the entire pipeline systems by performing non–destructive testing NDT randomly. To perform these NDT, nowadays manual operations are being replaced with robotics and automation. There are many researchers who have developed their own designs for pipe leakage monitoring robots. Some robots travel inside the pipeline to detect interior leakage, whereas other types of robots climb the exterior of the pipe and investigate the outer layer. In this article, one such exterior pipe climbing robot named T-Bot is introduced, which can climb the parallel pipes with varied adjustable lengths, which remains the novelty of the proposed design. The design was initially modelled in simulation software named Coppelaisim, and then the payload capacity was tested and verified with an actual fabricated one in a lab test. The static and dynamic performance of the proposed T-Bot design is studied with respect to the payload-to-weight ratio (p: w) in both simulation and real-time testing. Another software named FEMM is utilized to validate the design with respect to magnetic flux lines. Finally, an attempt is made to study the stability of the T-Bot using the Internet of Things concept via the Edge impulse platform.

Keywords

NDT, T-Bot, Pipe Climbing Robot, Edge impulse, Anomaly detection.

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