Design and Development of a GPR-Equipped Robot for Full-space External Diseases Detection in Drainage Pipelines*

Abstract

Soil diseases around drainage pipelines are a major factor in road collapse. Robots designed to detect these diseases face multiple challenges, including harsh internal environments, size limitations, difficulties in achieving full external space coverage, and the impact of pose misalignment on disease localization. To address these challenges, this work presents the design and development of a pipeline robot equipped with Ground-Penetrating Radar (GPR), capable of adapting to a pipe diameter range of 500-1000 millimeters and providing comprehensive detection of external space diseases. A radial offset estimation model is introduced, and by integrating multi-sensor data, the robot achieves full-pose perception, overcoming challenges related to angular and positional misalignment during disease localization. Experimental results demonstrate that the robot can achieve a maximum detection speed of up to 0.5 meters per second and is capable of adapting to various field drainage pipeline scenarios, including full water, rough terrain, pose misalignment, and 90-degree bends. Azimuth errors for external disease localization are controlled within 1 degree, and axial displacement errors are controlled within 2 centimeters.