IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ROBOTICS, VOL. 29, NO.

1, FEBRUARY 2013 251

A Compact and Compliant External
Pipe-Crawling Robot
Puneet Singh and G. K. Ananthasuresh
AbstractThe focus of this paper is on the practical aspects of
design, prototyping, and testing of a compact, compliant external
pipe-crawling robot that can inspect a closely spaced bundle of
pipes in hazardous environments and areas that are inaccessible to
humans. The robot consists of two radially deployable compliant
ring actuators that are attached to each other along the longitu-
dinal axis of the pipe by a bidirectional linear actuator. The robot
imitates the motion of an inchworm. The novel aspect of the com-
pliant ring actuator is a spring-steel compliant mechanism that
converts circumferential motion to radial motion of its multiple
gripping pads. Circumferential motion to ring actuators is pro-
vided by two shape memory alloy (SMA) wires that are guided by
insulating rollers. The design of the compliant mechanism is de-
rived from a radially deployable mechanism. A unique feature of
the design is that the compliant mechanism provides the necessary
kinematic function within the limited annular space around the
pipe and serves as the bias spring for the SMA wires. The robot
has a control circuit that sequentially activates the SMA wires and
the linear actuator; it also controls the crawling speed. The robot
has been fabricated, tested, and automated. Its crawling speed is
about 45 mm/min, and the weight is about 150 g. It ts within an
annular space of a radial span of 15 mm to crawl on a pipe of
60-mm outer diameter.
Index TermsCompliant mechanism, inchworm motion, pipe
crawler, pipe inspection, shape memory alloy (SMA).
I. INTRODUCTION
P
IPE crawlers can be classied as internal and external
crawlers: Internal ones crawl inside the pipe, while ex-
ternal ones traverse on the outside. They can also be classi-
ed, based on locomotion methods, as wheeled crawler, walk-
ing crawler, sliding crawler, and inchworm crawler [1][5].
Wheeled crawlers work well only on even surfaces. Walking
crawlers require sensors and sophisticated control to have the
necessary gait and to avoid obstacles. Sliding crawlers need
tracks or treads. In comparison with other crawlers, inchworm
crawlers are less cumbersome and are less affected by irregular-
ities. Different variations of inchworm crawlers are proposed in
the literature (see, e.g., [6][11]).
Manuscript received March 10, 2012; revised June 29, 2012; accepted
August 18, 2012. Date of publication September 7, 2012; date of current version
February 1, 2013. This paper was recommended for publication by Associate
Editor Y. Choi and Editor B. J. Nelson upon evaluation of the reviewers com-
ments. This work was supported in part by the Government of India under a
Board of Research in Nuclear Sciences Grant. This paper is an enhanced and
comprehensive version of three papers that presented different aspects of the
work in national conferences held in India, as cited in this paper.
The authors are with the Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560012, India (e-mail: puneet@
mecheng.iisc.ernet.in; suresh@mecheng.iisc.ernet.in).
Color versions of one or more of the gures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TRO.2012.2214560
Fig. 1. Space constraints of an external pipe crawler. The side viewof a bundle
of three pipes is shown at the top, while the cross-sectional view of the space
available for one pipe is shown at the bottom.
Many of the crawlers reported in the literature are internal
crawlers. However, the focus of this paper is not on internal
crawlers because of the need to inspect the thickness of a pipe
carrying corrosive uids. External inchworm-type pipe crawlers
have received modest attention in the literature. Schempf
et al. [8] reported an external inchworm crawler using a four-
bar linkage to generate clamping and releasing actions. The
bulky rigid-body mechanisms used in it made it occupy a lot
of space outside the pipe because its function was to remove
and bag asbestos. Fukuda et al. [9] also designed external pipe
crawler using a winch mechanismand used sophisticated control
system. Choi et al. [10], [11] reported pneumatically actuated
external crawlers that used hinged clamps to hold the pipe. The
pipe-inspection robot of Chatzakos et al. [12] used omnidirec-
tional wheels and linkages. Except the crawlers reported by Choi
et al. [10], [11], other external crawlers are not compact to meet
the requirements of the application considered in this paper.
The application that motivated our work is an environment
in which there is a bundle of pipes with limited space between
them. Typically, only 1020-mmradial space is available around
a pipe of 60-mm outer diameter. This means that with a radial
span of 15 mm, there is an annular space between circles of 90
and 60 mm diameters (see Fig. 1). Thus, the main challenge
addressed in this study is an external crawler that is compact
in terms of mechanism and actuation. The crawlers reported by
1552-3098/$31.00 2012 IEEE
252 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ROBOTICS, VOL. 29, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2013
Choi et al. in [10], [11] seem to be compact but use pneumatic
actuation, which needs exible pipes to crawl along. We use
shape memory alloy (SMA) wires for actuation and joint-free
compliant design for the mechanism. Using SMA wire has an
advantage over pneumatic actuation in that the crawler can be
untethered if it is equipped with a battery. The compliant mech-
anism concept is amenable for further reduction in size without
putting undue demand on manufacturability.
Fig. 1 shows the main features of the crawler: It has two
rings that hold the pipe tightly when there is no actuation; it
crawls like an inchworm by alternately releasing the grip of
one of its rings with actuation, and moving to and fro with a
linear actuator that connects the rings. The clamping mechanism
and linear actuators of the inchworm crawler must t within
the narrow space indicated in Fig. 1. Hence, it necessitated
a compact mechanism and actuator. Since multiple dedicated
crawlers are needed for all the pipes, it is also imperative that
the cost is kept low.
This implies that the design should be simple, use as fewparts
as possible, and minimize assembly. This challenge is met by
a unibody compliant ring actuator actuated by SMA wires. The
ring actuator has a compliant mechanism that converts circum-
ferential motion to radial motion of its multiple gripping pads.
Unlike the hinged clamps used in [11], the ring actuator can
apply equal pressure on all its pads to have uniform gripping on
the pipe.
The ring actuator and SMA wires operate synergistically:
SMA provides the compact actuation to the mechanism, while
the compliant mechanism serves as the bias spring for SMA
in cyclical operation. As stated earlier, the inchworm motion is
achieved by a pair of compliant ring actuators connected by bidi-
rectional linear actuators. One of the rings translates forward,
while the other is clamped and the linear actuator is extended.
Then, the translated ring is clamped and the rst ring advances as
the linear actuator reduces the length between the rings. A sim-
ple electronic circuit controls the cyclical operation. Apart from
the design of the joint-free compliant ring actuator, the other
challenges faced in this study include electrical isolation of the
SMA wires from the metal used in the ring actuator, speed of
crawling based on heating/cooling times of SMA wires, a linear
actuator that is compact and adequately powerful, and design
for manufacturability of the entire crawler robot.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. The
design of the ring actuator is explained in Section II. Section III
deals with the characterization of SMA wires used in this study.
Sections IV and V describe the clamp-and-push inchworm
motion and integration of the control electronics. Section VI
presents the details of prototyping and the results of testing.
Concluding remarks are in Section VII.
II. COMPLIANT RING ACTUATOR
In recent years, radially deployable mechanisms have
gained popularity in various forms: retractable structures
(see, e.g., [13]), solar arrays (see, e.g., [14]), and toys
(www.hoberman.com). These mechanisms are overconstrained
(i.e., they have negative degrees of freedom as per the Gr ubler
Fig. 2. (a) Geometric model of the radially deployable mechanism. (b) Ra-
dially deployable mechanism: (i) clamping and (ii) releasing. It is made of
16 angulated members connected with 24 revolute joints and arranged in two
layers. One angulated element is shown in Fig. 2(b-i).
formula [15]) but have special geometry that permits them
to move radially in or out, as shown in Fig. 2(a) and (b).
Such a mechanism, which is known as the Hoberman linkage
[www.hoberman.com], can be used to clamp around a pipe and
release the grip upon actuation. However, there is a problem
with it because all of its points move radially outward and need
sliding guidance or need to be pulled away using anchors lo-
cated outside. This issue was resolved with a general theory of
planar radially deployable mechanisms presented by Patel and
Ananthasuresh [16]. A new type of mechanism that has few
points that move along a circle was identied in that work. It
enables circumferential actuation to achieve the radial deploy-
ment and avoids the need for radial guidance.
The circumferentially actuated mechanism is illustrated in
Fig. 3(a) and (b). However, this multibody jointed mechanism
is also not suitable to t into the narrow annular space such as
the one shown in Fig. 1. Rather, it will be either difcult or not
economical to manufacture hinged parts of small size. There-
fore, we developed a radially deployable compliant mechanism
with the same kinematic behaviors the one in Fig. 3(a) and (b)
and satisfying the space constraint. This is done by using elas-
tic deformation instead of joint-based motion as in compliant
mechanisms [17].
A. Radially Deployable Compliant Mechanism
A radially deployable compliant mechanism is shown in
Fig. 4(a) and (b). When its compliant rings are rotated relative
to each other, its interior points move outward. This mechanism
was derivedalthough it may not be apparent at rst sight
from the rigid-body mechanism shown in Fig. 3(a) and (b). It
consists of two layers of identical planar compliant mechanisms
SINGH AND ANANTHASURESH: COMPACT AND COMPLIANT EXTERNAL PIPE-CRAWLING ROBOT 253
Fig. 3. (a) Geometric model of the circumferentially actuated radially deploy-
able mechanism. (b) Circumferentially actuated radially deployable mechanism:
(i) clamping and (ii) releasing. It consists of two identical layers each containing
four identical triangles and one ring. The triangles are attached to each other
and the ring with 16 revolute joints. Each triangle is attached to one triangle in
the same layer, one ring, and one triangle in the other layer.
Fig. 4. (a) Geometric model of the circumferentially actuated radially deploy-
able compliant mechanism. (b) Circumferentially actuated radially deployable
compliant mechanismprototype: (i) undeformed and (ii) deformed. This is made
of two identical layers of compliant segments connected to each other with eight
revolute joints.
of certain shape attached to each other at eight interior points.
The two layers are arranged one over the other wherein one is a
mirror image of the other about an in-plane axis. When the ring
portions of each layer are rotated circumferentially relative to
each other, eight attachment points move radially.
To understand the radially deployable compliant mechanism
shown in Fig. 4(a) and (b), consider a single compliant segment
Fig. 5. (a) Deformation of a single compliant segment. (b) Deformation of a
single compliant ring.
Fig. 6. Geometric model of the SMA-actuated radially deployable compliant
mechanism.
shown in Fig. 5(a). It consists of two relatively rigid portions
connected by a slender curved beam of a certain shape. Imagine
that the rigid portion attached to the ring is constrained to move
along the circumference of a circle whose center coincides with
that of the arc of the ring. Imagine also that the pad is con-
strained to move along a radial line passing through the same
center. As shown in Fig. 5(a), the elastic deformation shows
that when this element is actuated circumferentially at one end,
amplied radial motion ensues at the other end. The shape of the
slender curved beam is the crucial component for this behavior.
The shape of the compliant segment was intuitively chosen at
rst by observing the motion of the rigid links of the mechanism
of Fig. 3. A few shapes were then explored using elastic defor-
mation analysis until satisfactory behavior was obtained. The
constraints assumed in Fig. 5(a) are achieved by using an array
of four of these elements arranged symmetrically around the
circumference of a ring, as shown in Fig. 5(b). The constraint
on the pad to move along a radial line is achieved by placing one
such ring ipped over another and attaching both at the pads.
This gives rise to the ring actuator shown in Fig. 6.
254 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ROBOTICS, VOL. 29, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2013
Fig. 7. SMA-actuated radially deployable compliant mechanism (a) with a
single wire and (b) with two SMA wires.
B. Shape-Memory-Alloy-Actuated Radially Deployable
Compliant Mechanism
Using the principle of elastic deformation depicted in Fig. 5(a)
and (b), the pads of the ring actuator move radially when its two
rings are rotated circumferentially relative to each other. This
differential circumferential motion to the two rings is provided
by two SMA wires. The ends of each of the two SMA wires
are rst elongated, wrapped around half of the rings, capped
with plastic clips, and then crimped rmly to two rings so that
they can be pulled together when the SMA wire contracts upon
heating. We use spring-steel to make the compliant rings because
the restoring force to bring the SMA wires had to be sufciently
large (which is not possible with plastic materials unless the size
is large) and to have good elastic behavior for repetitive action.
Since spring-steel in an electrical conductor, it warrants
proper electrical insulation between the SMA wires and the
rings. For this, several insulating roller guides are used. Rolling
guides solve two problems: electrical insulation and guiding the
wire with reduced friction. It can be noticed in Fig. 6 that the
ring actuator is compact in the radial direction around a circular
object on which it is to be mounted. Its annular span in the radial
direction is only 15 mm, while its overall radius is 90 mm. This
compact design was arrived at after a few trials reported earlier
by us in conference presentations [18], [19].
In one of our earlier designs [18], [19], which is shown in
Fig. 7(a), we had used a single SMA wire that was put along the
circumference of the rings. This caused nonuniform motion of
the gripping pads. This is because the mechanism, as well as the
radially deployable rigid-body shown in Fig. 3(a) and (b), has
an extra degree of freedom that makes the two rings translate
relative to each other. This will prevail unless the two rings
Fig. 8. Previous prototypes of pipe crawler. (a) SMAstrips for linear actuation.
(b) SMA helical springs for linear actuation.
are made to only rotate relative to each other. When a single
SMA wire is wrapped around the ring, it pulls unevenly on the
four compliant mechanism segments. Hence, the four gripping
pads move unequally to the extent that one pad moves in the
inward direction while the rest of the three move in the outward
direction. This is conrmed by nite-element simulation done
in ABAQUS [www.simulia.com].
To solve this problem, we used two SMAwires instead of one.
Two SMA wires were put in such a way that both SMA wires
apply the force uniformly on the ring and avoid the undesirable
extra degree of freedom. Its simulation is shown in Fig. 7(b),
in which it can be seen that all gripping pads move equally in
the outward direction by 1.5 mm. In ABAQUS simulation, we
assumed that the lower ring is xed and the forces were applied
on the upper ring, as shown in Fig. 7(a) and (b). Tetrahedral nite
elements were used in ABAQUS simulation, and the mesh was
made sufciently ne to ensure convergence. We noticed that
using four SMA springs is even better than using two, but it
leads to structural complexity in terms of capping plastic clips
and electrical connections.
In our previous attempts [18], [19] at prototyping the pipe
crawler with the ring actuator, we attempted to use SMA strips
custom-made in U-shape or as helical springs. These are shown
in Fig. 8(a) and (b). SMA strips needed a lot of current to heat
up and actuate, and worse yet, they needed a lot of time to cool
back to room temperature. SMA helical springs suffered from
excessive lateral exibility. Therefore, SMAactuation is limited
only to the ring actuator in the nal design and prototype [20].
III. SHAPE MEMORY ALLOY WIRE AS AN ACTUATOR
SMA material can be used in two modes: 1) super- or
pseudoelastic and 2) shape memory [21]. In this study, it is used
SINGH AND ANANTHASURESH: COMPACT AND COMPLIANT EXTERNAL PIPE-CRAWLING ROBOT 255
Fig. 9. Phase diagram of SMA with compliant mechanism.
primarily in the latter mode although the rst is needed to pre-
stress the SMA wires. When an SMA wire is electrothermally
heated by passage of electric current, it heats up and shrinks as
it transforms to its martensite state from the austenite state, as
shown in Fig. 9. The shortening of the wire causes the relative
circumferential motion of the rings. Compliant segments trans-
form this to amplied radial motion at the gripping pads, as per
the principle illustrated in Fig. 5(a) and (b). This releases the
grip on the circular object, i.e., pipe. Upon turning off the elec-
tric current, the wires cool and reach the martensite state again.
Then, the restoring force of the compliant segments pulls the
wires back to their stressed states (see atomic level schematic
shown in Fig. 9). This cycle repeats as many times as needed
provided that the original state is restored in terms of stress in
the SMA wires and temperature.
A. Characterization of Shape Memory Alloy
The principle of using SMA material as an actuator is shown
in Fig. 10. It shows the SMA wire as a spring stretched from
its memory shape at room temperature and connected to a
load or a bias spring (here, the compliant mechanism). Since
SMA exhibits pseudoplasticity in this condition, it stretches and
stays that way. After this, the SMA wire is heated so that it can
return to its memory shape and pull the load or the bias spring
in this process. When the SMA wire cools down to the room
temperature, it is the load or the bias spring that pulls the SMA
back to the stressed state. Otherwise, reheating does not make
any further movement. Thus, the load or bias spring plays a
crucial role here. If the bias spring is not stiff enough, the SMA
wire does not return to the sufciently stressed state, and hence,
the stroke of actuation will be reduced. If the load/bias spring is
too stiff, the SMA will give a very small stroke. Therefore, the
stiffness value is important to make repeated cyclical motion
possible. The stiffness calculations are explained in the next
section.
B. Stiffness Characterization of the Shape Memory Alloy Wire
In order to match the stiffness of the complaint mechanism
with the SMA wire, we performed an experiment with the SMA
wire to characterize its stiffness. The SMA wire that we used
Fig. 10. Actuation of SMA wire with load/bias spring.
needs to be stretched up to 2% strain before assembling onto the
device because it was trained to recover a maximumstrain of 2%
for unlimited number of cycles. We used 1-mmdiameter NiTi
Cu SMA wires (National Aerospace Laboratories, Bangalore,
India). From the manufacturers, it is known that the wire can
exert a stress of about 100 MPa, which for a 1-mm diameter
wire translates to about 78.54-N force
F = A
cross section
= 78.54 N.
The length of the wire and the prestrain in it had to be chosen
carefully to exert adequate force and displacement that match
those of the compliant segments. Only then, repeatable operation
is possible. In other words, the stiffness of the SMA wire and
the compliant segments should be matched. Therefore, it was
imperative that the SMA wires be properly characterized.
The experimental setup to characterize the SMA wires is
shown in Fig. 11. The wire was prestretched by about 1.75%.
As the wire was heated, there was deformation in the SMA
wire. To see the deformation in the wire against different applied
weights, we applied weights from 1 to 8 kg. With 8-kg weight,
the deformation was 4 mm, indicating that the wire is able to
contract against a force of as much as 78 N. To calculate the
stiffness in the martensite phase, we took the 226-mm-long SMA
wire and xed it at one end, while the other end was attached
to 8-kg weight. The SMA wire deformed with the weight by
1 mm. Therefore, the stiffness of SMA wire in the martensite
phase is calculated as 78.48 kN/m
K
Martensite Phase
=
L

=
8 9.81
1
= 78.48 kN/m.
To calculate the stiffness in the cooling phase (during which
material transitions from the austenite to the martensite phase),
we took a 230-mm (prestretched by 4 mm) long wire and xed
its one end in a bench-vice and applied 8-kg weight at the
other end. With a 2-V power supply, the ensuing current heats
up the wire and transforms it to austenite phase changing its
length to 226 mm. Then, we turned the power supply OFF. As a
result, austenite phase starts to transform into martensite phase.
Due to weight, the SMA wire again deformed in cooling phase
up to 229 mm. Therefore, the SMA wire deformed by 3 mm
256 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ROBOTICS, VOL. 29, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2013
Fig. 11. Schematic of experimental setup for SMA wire characterization.
in cooling phase. We repeated this experiment ve times and
found stiffness in the cooling phase to be 26.16 kN/m
K
Cooling Phase
=
L

=
8 9.81
3
= 26.16 kN/m
K
SMA CoolingPhase
< K
Compliant Mechanism
.
Now, to make the repetitive motion possible, the stiffness of
compliant ring should be greater than the stiffness of SMA wire
in the cooling phase. Only then, the compliant ring will stretch
the SMAwire back to the stressed state. The stiffness of the com-
pliant ring was calculated to be 69.11 kN/m by nite-element
simulation [see Fig. 7(b)]. This stiffness value is more than the
stiffness of the SMA wire in the cooling phase. Therefore, it
ensures repetitive cyclic motion.
C. Thermal Characterization of the Shape Memory Alloy Wire
It is important to understand the electrothermal behavior of
the SMA wire and the entire ring actuator. Two issues arise
here: 1) ensuring that the ring cools to room temperature within
reasonable time after one cycle of operation and 2) ensuring that
all SMA wires heat to 40

C transition temperature with 2 V.
For 1), we performed an experiment on the ring actuator and
the SMA wire and measured the temperatures. We used K-type
thermocouples to measure the temperature shown in Fig. 12(a).
The dotted line in the graph shows the temperature of the SMA
wire, while the other line shows the temperature of the spring-
steel portion. It can be noticed that it takes only about 1 s to heat,
while it takes 9 s to cool. Thus, it takes about 10 s to complete
a cycle. It is worth noting that it is the cooling time that decides
the overall cycle time. To make it faster than 10 s, one would
need to use a cooling mechanism such as a fan or Peltier cooler,
which comes at the expeese of more complexity.
To address the second issue, we performed 2-D transient
electrothermal modeling of SMA wire using CMOSOL Multi-
physics [www.comsol.com] to calculate the temperature prole
by applying 2-V electric potential. The temperature prole is
shown in Fig. 12(b) at time 2 s. It can be seen that the en-
tire wire reaches 40

C. This distribution continues to be so
when the voltage is sustained for longer time. Hence, all of the
SMA wire uniformly undergoes phase transition. The material
properties used in thermal modeling were thermal conductiv-
ity = 18 W/(mK), density = 6800 Kg/m
3
, and resistivity =
Fig. 12. (a) Temperature versus time in the experiment. (b) Temperature dis-
tribution of the SMA wire in its electrothermal modeling at time 2 s.
7.6e-7 m for the SMA wire. The two ends of the wire were
held at room temperature in this modeling, which is justiable
because the spring-steel portion does not heat much, as can be
seen in Fig. 12(a).
IV. CLAMP-AND-PUSH MOTION
As demonstrated in Fig. 13, the robot consists of two SMA-
actuated radially deployable compliant ring actuators, which are
labeled A and B.
In order to crawl to the left, ring B grips the pipe tightly and
stays unactuated, while ring A is actuated to release its grip.
The translation actuator pushes ring A closer to ring B. At this
stage, actuation to ring A is stopped, thus making it grip the
pipe again while ring B is released and translation actuators are
activated in reverse direction. Now, ring B is pushed to the left.
This constitutes one cycle and leads to a nite movement to the
right. By repeating this cycle, the device crawls over the pipe.
By reversing the roles of rings A and B in a cycle, the crawling
direction can be changed. This concept works for an internal
crawler too, but here we focus on only the external crawler
within limited space.
V. ELECTRONICS INTEGRATION
An electronic circuit is necessary to automate the robot. Elec-
tric current has to be supplied to actuate the two pairs of SMA
wires that help the gripping pads release their grip and the
translation actuators that connect the two ring actuators. This
requires a driver circuit to effect these actuations cyclically in a
SINGH AND ANANTHASURESH: COMPACT AND COMPLIANT EXTERNAL PIPE-CRAWLING ROBOT 257
Fig. 13. Schematic illustration of a clamp-and-push concept of a pipe crawler
robot.
sequence. As stated before, we had used SMAstrips and springs
for translation actuation [see Fig. 8(a) and (b)] which took a lot
of time to heat and cool. Therefore, we decided to change the
translation actuator to a geared DC motor with lead screw.
The current-driving circuit on a printed circuit board is used
to effect the cyclical operation of triggering the passage and
stoppage of current in the two pairs of SMA wires and one
set of translation actuators (shown in Fig. 14). The circuit has
ATMEL-made AVR microcontroller with three current sources
in parallel, as shown in Fig. 15.
A switched mode power supply (SMPS) of 400-W capac-
ity was taken from a personal computer to supply the current
needed for the SMAwires and translation actuators. The current
can be switched by the microcontroller and the value of current
can be set by the three potentiometers. High-power MOSFETs
(metaloxide eld-effect transistors) are used to get the current
loads needed for the actuators. The microcontroller is interfaced
by universal serial bus converter. A command-driven program
is used to set the various actuator timings to control the speed.
Fig. 14. Cyclic chart for the pipe crawler robot.
The sequence of the actuation is programmed into the micro-
controller so that switching of the actuators is automatic.
VI. PROTOTYPING AND ASSEMBLY
Compliant radially deployable mechanism was assembled
using two compliant rings, as shown in Fig. 16. The com-
pliant rings, as stated earlier, convert the circumferential
motion into radial motion. First, we designed a geometric
model of compliant rings in SolidWorks [www.solidworks.com]
and generated the machining codethe G-codefor wire-cut
electrodischarge-machining (EDM) using customized ELAPT
software. The compliant rings were made out of spring steel
(AISI 1080; EN 42 J) cut on a wire-cut EDM. Since the two
rings are in two different parallel planes, they were soft-soldered
at the gripping pads. Two NiTiCu SMAwires were connected
in between the compliant rings with the help of a plastic clip
and a brass crimpable tube. The SMA wires were connected in
opposite directions. The insulating rollers on which the SMA
wire sits can be seen in Fig. 17 along with the other parts. In-
sulating acrylic rollers were made on the CO
2
laser machine.
To increase the friction coefcient between the pipe and grip-
ping pads, a butyl layer of 1-mm thickness was afxed onto the
gripping pads. A full assembly of SMA-actuated ring actuator
is shown in Fig. 17.
The electronics unit was packaged into a custom-designed
box, as shown in Fig. 18. The complete prototype of the crawl-
ing robot is shown in Fig. 17. Two SMA-actuated radially de-
ployable compliant mechanism rings are attached to each other
by translating DC actuator. The translation actuator consists of
three parts: DC motor, gear box, and lead screw. When the po-
tential is applied, the motor rotates, and the gear box reduces the
speed of the motor by 1:100 and the lead screw with a nut that
transmits the force on the compliant mechanism ring to move
relative to each other.
258 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ROBOTICS, VOL. 29, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2013
Fig. 15. Electronic schematic diagram for cyclic operation of the robot.
VII. TESTING AND RESULTS
Fig. 19 shows the test setup of SMA-actuated radial deploy-
able compliant ring actuator. The setup shows the ring actuator
put on a pipe that is set vertically. Since the outer diameter
of the pipe is larger than the diameter of the circle passing
through the four clamping points, there is a gripping force of
1.8 N (per clamping pad) applied on the pipe, as calculated by
the nite-element simulation in ABAQUS. With 2-V potential,
the ring loosens the grip on the pipe because of the radially
outward movement of the gripping pads. This experiment was
done 20 times to calculate the deformation in the clamping pads
without mounting it on the pipe. The maximum deformation
on one clamping pad was 1.2 mm with a standard deviation of
0.02 mm. When we look at the movement of all four pads, there
is about 2.4-mm change in the diameter of the circle passing
through the outer edges of the gripping pads in the unactuated
and actuated congurations.
Fig. 16. SMA-actuated radial deployable compliant ring actuator.
Fig. 17. Complete prototype of the crawling robot.
Fig. 18. Electronic control system for pipe crawler.
Fig. 19. Test setup for the actuator (a) at 0 V. The pipe is tightly gripped
against gravity (b) at 1.35 V; the ring got released and fell down.
SINGH AND ANANTHASURESH: COMPACT AND COMPLIANT EXTERNAL PIPE-CRAWLING ROBOT 259
Fig. 20. Demonstration of pipe crawler robot in horizontal pipe.
Fig. 21. Demonstration of pipe crawler robot on a pipe set at 30

incline.
Figs. 20 and 21 show the test setup of the pipe crawler robot.
The setup shows the robot put on a pipe that is set horizontal
and at 30

. Initially, the gripping pads of both the compliant ring

actuators tightly hold the pipe. When the SMA wires of the rst
ring are activated, the compliant mechanism releases the grip
on the pipe. At this time, the translation actuator is activated to
bring the ring actuators closer together, as shown in Steps 2 and
3 in Figs. 20 and 21. After this, the rst ring is deactivated to grip
the pipe. This is followed by release of the grip of the second
ring actuator. After this, the translation actuator is activated in
the reverse direction, as shown in Steps 4 and 5 in Figs. 20 and
21. That leads the robot to its initial conguration but moved by
30 mm in 40 s as well. Thus, it was observed that the measured
crawling speed in both congurations is 45 mm/min.
There is room for improvement in the crawling robot in terms
of increasing its speed and reducing the size. This is largely de-
pendent on the linear actuator used to effect the relative motion
between the pair of ring actuators. It should be noted that the
SMA wire actuation is improved to the extent possible to take
as little time as possible to heat and cool. It takes about 1 s to
heat up and then 9 s to cool down an SMA wire. This is the
limiting step in this device. Hence, a suitable motor that is not
much more expensive than the one used now would help in-
crease the crawling speed. The robot is not yet tested on curved
pipes, but it could be done by including exible joints at the
connection points of the linear actuator. The lead screw and DC
motor, if made smaller, can further reduce the overall size of
the crawling robot and make it the curvature of the pipe sharper
than is currently possible. Friction and sliding may also need to
be modeled.
The main contribution of the work presented here is the com-
pactness, simplicity, and cost effectiveness of the SMA-actuated
ring actuator. It may be useful for other applications as well.
Another contribution is the concept of designing the stiffness of
the bias spring (here, the compliant ring actuator) to match that
of the SMA wire. This too is important in many applications
beyond the one presented here.
VIII. CLOSURE
In this paper, we have presented a compact external pipe
crawler robot that follows clamp-and-push motion and imitates
inchwormmotion. Its compactness is a result of radially deploy-
able compliant mechanism and SMA actuation. The compliant
mechanism used here was designed on the basis of a kinematic
theory developed for radially deployable linkages. A novel fea-
ture of the design is that the compliant mechanism provides the
necessary kinematic function within limited space and serves
as the bias spring for the SMA wires. The stiffness of the SMA
wire and that of the compliant mechanism were matched so that
they work synergistically. Adescription of its working principle,
design details, and practical aspects were provided. A control
circuit is built to effect the cyclical triggering in a sequence of
six steps. The total cycle time is 40 s, and the distance crawled
is 30 mm per cycle. Thus, a crawling speed of 45 mm/min was
achieved in the prototype. Other sizes and speeds are also pos-
sible by changing the design of the compliant mechanism in the
ring actuator.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work is a result of synergistic effort of several students
of the Multidisciplinary Multi-scale Devices and Design group
at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. The authors
would like to thank G. Balaji and P. Biradar for initial designs
and prototypes; B. M. V. Kumar and A. R. Kumar for their help
in fabrication; and D. K. Badige and S. Yamadagni for their
help in building the electronics unit. The SMA wires were made
by C. N. S. Krishna and Ramaiah in Dr. S. Bhaumiks group
at the National Aerospace Laboratories, Bangalore. They also
thank A. Haruray, who brought the application to their attention
and helped with the specications for the crawler. This help is
gratefully acknowledged.
REFERENCES
[1] K. Suzumori, T. Miyagawa, M. Kimura, and Y. Hasegawa, Micro inspec-
tion robot for 1-in pipes, IEEE/ASME Trans. Mechatronics, vol. 4, no. 3,
pp. 286292, Sep. 1999.
[2] S. G. Roh and H. R. Choi, Differential-drive in-pipe robot for moving
inside urban gas pipelines, IEEE Trans. Robot., vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 117,
Feb. 2005.
[3] H. T. Roman and B. A. Pellegrino, Pipe crawling inspection robots: An
overview, IEEE Trans. Energy Convers., vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 576583, Sep.
1993.
[4] A. Zagler and F. Pfeiffer, MORTIZ, a pipe crawler for tube junctions, in
Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Robot. Autom., Taipei, Taiwan, Sep. 1314, 2003,
pp. 29542959.
260 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ROBOTICS, VOL. 29, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2013
[5] J. A. G alvez, P. G. de Santos, and F. Pfeiffer, Intrinsic tactile sens-
ing for the optimization of force distribution in a pipe crawling robot,
IEEE/ASME Trans. Mechatronics, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 2635, Mar. 2001.
[6] D. K. Haas, Small diameter pipe crawler, Savannah River Nat. Lab. Tech
briefs, U.S. patent 6 427 602, 2002.
[7] P. Breedveld, D. E. van der Kouwe, and M. A. J. van Gorp, Locomotion
through the intestine by means of rolling stents, presented at the Amer.
Soc. Mech. Eng. Design Eng. Tech. Conf. Comput. Inf. Eng. Conf., Salt
Lake City, UT, Sep. 28/Oct. 2, 2004, Paper DETC2004/MECH 57380.
[8] H. Schempf, E. Mutschler, B. Chemel, and S. Boehmke, BOA II & Pipe
Taz: Robotic pipe-asbestos insulation abatement systems, in Proc. IEEE
Int. Conf. Robot. Autom., Albuquerque, NM, Apr. 1997, pp. 5259.
[9] T. Fukuda, H. Hosokai, and M. Otsuka, Autonomous pipeline inspection
and maintenance robot with inch wormmobile mechanism, in Proc. IEEE
Int. Conf. Robot. Autom., Mar. 1987, pp. 539544.
[10] C. Choi, S. Jung, and S. Kim, Feeder pipe inspection robot with inch-
worm mechanism using pneumatic actuators, Int. J. Control Autom.
Syst., vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 8795, 2006.
[11] C. Choi, B. Park, and S. Jung, The design and analysis of a feeder pipe
inspection robot with an automatic pipe-tracking system, IEEE/ASME
Trans. Mechatronics, vol. 15, no. 5, pp. 736745, Oct. 2010.
[12] P. Chatzakos, Y. P. Markopoulos, K. Hrissagis, and A. Khalid, On the
development of a modular external-pipe crawling Omni-directional mobile
robot, in Proc. 8th Int. Conf. Climbing Walking Robot. Support Technol.
Mobile Mach. Part 11, 2006, pp. 693700.
[13] T. Buhl, F. V. Jensen, and S. Pellegrino, Shape optimization of cover
plates for retractable roof structures, Comput. Struct., vol. 88, pp. 1227
1236, 2004.
[14] K. A. Faist and G. J. Wiens, Parametric study on the use of Hoberman
mechanisms for recongurable antenna and solar arrays, in Proc. IEEE
Aerosp. Conf., Mar., 2010, pp. 613.
[15] G. Erdman, G. N. Sandor, and S. Kota, Mechanism Design: Analysis and
Synthesis. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall, 2001.
[16] J. Patel and G. K. Ananthasuresh, Akinematic theory for radially foldable
planar linkages, Int. J. Solids Struct., vol. 44, pp. 62796298, 2007.
[17] L. L. Howell, Compliant Mechanisms. New York: Wiley, 2001.
[18] G. Balaji, P. Biradar, C. N. Saikrishna, K. Venkata Ramaiah, S. K.
Bhaumik, A. Haruray, and G. K. Ananthasuresh, An SMA-actuated,
compliant mechanism-based pipe-crawler, presented at the Int. Conf.
Smart Mater., Struct., Syst., Bangalore, India, Jul. 2008, Paper no. 96.
[19] B. M. Vinod Kumar, D. K. Badige, S. Hegde, and G. K.
Ananthasuresh, An improved compact compliant mechanism for an ex-
ternal pipe-crawler, presented at the 14th Nat. Conf. Mach. Mechanisms,
Durgapur, India, Dec. 2009.
[20] P. Singh and G. K. Ananthasuresh, An SMA-actuated, compact, compli-
ant ring-actuator with uniform deformation, presented at the 15th Nat.
Conf. Mach. Mechanisms, Chennai, India, Dec. 2011.
[21] M. G. Faulkner, J. J. Amalra, and A. Bhattacharyya, Experimental in-
vestigation and thermal and electrical properties Ni-Ti-Cu shape memory
wires, Int. J. Smart Mater. Struct., vol. 9, pp. 632639, 2009.
Puneet Singhreceived the B.Tech. degree in mechan-
ical and automation engineering from Guru Gobind
Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi, India, in 2010.
He is currently a Research Assistant with the
Multidisciplinary Multiscale Devices and Design
Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. His re-
search interests include robotics, biorobotics, brain
machine interfaces, microsystems, compliant mech-
anisms, and biomechanics.
G. K. Ananthasuresh received the B.Tech. degree
from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras,
Chennai, India, in 1989 and the Ph.D. degree from
the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1994.
He is currently a Professor of mechanical en-
gineering with the Indian Institute of Science,
Bangalore, India. He worked as a Postdoctoral Re-
search Associate with the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Cambridge (during 19951996), taught
at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (dur-
ing 19962004), and served as a Visiting Scientist
with the University of Cambridge, Cambridge, U.K., and the Katholike Uni-
vesiteit, Leuven, Belgium. He is on the Editorial Boards of eight journals. He
is a coauthor of more than 180 papers in journals and conferences, as well
as a textbook, two edited books, and ten book chapters. His current research
interests include compliant mechanisms, kinematics, multidisciplinary design
optimization, microsystems technology, micro- and mesoscale manufacturing,
protein design, and cellular biomechanics.
Dr. Ananthasuresh received the National Science Foundation CAREER
Award (19982002) in the U.S. and the Swarnajayanthi Fellowship (2007
2012) and Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize (2010) in India, as well as seven best
paper awards at international and national conferences.