TICBot: Development of a Tensegrity-Based In-Pipe Crawling Robot

This article presents the development of a novel tensegrity-based robot, TICBot, which is capable of crawling in tubular environments. Based on the concept of tensegrity, a deformable robotic module consisted of discrete rigid struts and a continuous net of elastic springs is proposed. Then, the in-pipe crawling robot is designed by serially cascading three uniform modules. The mechanical structure of the robotic module is determined using force density method on the basis of kinematic and static analysis. Performance of the robot in aspects of shape changeability, mobility, load capacity, and adaptability are tested on the prototype. Experimental results show that the robot has the abilities to crawl in pipes with different inner diameters and shapes, and to pass through elbow pipes adaptively under the control of a simple actuation sequence. Compared with existing robots, this proposed approach enables more compact structures along with enhanced mobility and adaptability. This article validates the effectiveness of our proposal and provides a new approach for developing in-pipe crawling robots and other bioinspired robots.