Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute Researchers have developed a robot that can crawl inside natural gas pipelines to map them, while also detecting and repairing their leaks when necessary.
The research project, which is near completion, was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) through the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) and its Rapid Encapsulation of Pipelines Avoiding Intensive Replacement (REPAIR) program. Upon its application, use of this system will drastically reduce the costs of pipeline leak detection and leak repair processes.
The repair is made by the robot applying resin coating from inside, to seal the crack and can be applied for pipes of any material. The robot has a modular configuration which can be modified, which means flexibility for each application.
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