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. 2021 Mar 24;8(10):nwab048. doi: 10.1093/nsr/nwab048

Figure 6.

Figure 6.

An untethered pipe-climbing robot with a multiple-mode MAIPAM. (A) The structure of the untethered pipe-climbing robot, consisting of a MAIPAM and an untethered control system. (B) Schematic of the 2D-based design pattern of the MAIPAM. The MAIPAM contains three cascaded active elastomer balloons (two type III balloons of numbers 0 and 2, one type I balloon of number 1). Upon compressed air, balloon 1 can generate a periodical elongation-contraction motion while balloons 0 and 2 can form helical shapes that can be used to generate controllable friction forces. By synthetically controlling the periodical motion and the friction forces (Fig. S15), the robot can achieve stable climbing in a pipe-line. (C) Photographs of climbing processes of the untethered pipe-climbing robot in a pipe-line of diameter 55 mm (Movie S8).