In order to solve the problem that the current pipeline climbing soft robot needs to be connected with external power source by tethered mode
in this paper
a micro-scale pipeline climbing elastomeric robot without tethered with a new driving mode is proposed. The robot is composed of two innovative trunk-like winding actuators and a retractable actuator. The feasibility of the scheme is verified by many climbing experiments on the surface of horizontal pipeline
vertical pipeline
variable diameter pipeline
curved pipeline
different cross sections and different materials pipelines. Compared with rigid robots
the elastomeric robot is lighter
smaller
and more adaptable. Compared with tethered soft robots
the elastomeric robot also effectively avoids the extra load caused by the connection line and the various motional troubles caused by the entanglement of the connection line with the pipeline or the robot itself.