This development program is a joint effort among the Northeast Gas Association (formerly New York Gas Group), Foster-Miller, Inc., and the US Department of Energy (DOE) through the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL). The total cost of the project is $772,525, with the National Energy Technology Laboratory of the US Department of Energy contributing $572,525, and the Northeast Gas Association contributing $200,000. The present report summarizes the accomplishments of the project during its fourth three-month period (from July 2003 through September 2003). The efforts of the project focused during this period in completing the assessment of the tether technology, which is intended to be used as the means of communication between robot and operator, in designing the MFL sensor module, in completing the kinematic studies, and in initiating tractor design. In addition, work on the ovality sensor progressed significantly, while work on system integration was initiated focusing at this point in time on module coupling. Results to date indicate that the robotic system under design will be able to meet most of the design specifications initially specified. Earlier concerns regarding the portability of the system are shown to be a non-issue, with new more detailed analysis showing that from a …

This development program is a joint effort among the Northeast Gas Association (formerly New York Gas Group), Foster-Miller, Inc., GE Oil & Gas (PII), and the US Department of Energy (DOE) through the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL). The total cost of the project is $772,525, with the National Energy Technology Laboratory of the US Department of Energy contributing $572,525, and the Northeast Gas Association contributing $200,000. The present report summarizes the accomplishments of the project during its fifth three-month period (from October 2003 through December 2003). The efforts of the project focused during this period in completing the assessment of the tether technology, which is intended to be used as the means of communication between robot and operator, in completing the design of the MFL sensor modules, and in completing the kinematic studies and tractor design. In addition, work on the ovality sensor has been completed, while work on system integration is nearly complete. Results to date indicate that the robotic system under design will be able to meet most of the design specifications initially prescribed. The kinematic analysis shows that from a locomotor point of view an inspection of a 16 inch-24 inch pipe size range with a …

The National Energy Technology Laboratory of the US Department of Energy (under Award DE-FC26-02NT41645) and the NYSEARCH Committee of the Northeast Gas Association (previous the New York Gas Group), have sponsored research to develop a robotic pipeline inspection system capable of navigation through the typical physical and operational obstacles that make transmission and distribution pipelines unpiggable. The research contractors, Foster-Miller and GE Oil & Gas (PII North America) have performed an engineering study and developed a conceptual design that meets all the requirements for navigating and inspecting unpiggable transmission pipelines. Based on Foster-Miller's previous efforts developing the Pipe Mouse robot, the RoboScan inspection robot (Figure ES-1) meets the navigational and physical challenges of unpiggable pipelines through an innovative modular platform design, segmented MFL inspection modules and improvements to the inter-module coupling design.