A Hermetic, Transparent Soft Growing Vine Robot System for Pipe Inspection

TL;DR

This paper presents a hermetic, transparent soft vine robot system designed for pipe inspection, enabling accurate condition assessment and mapping in real-world industrial pipe environments.

Contribution

The paper introduces a fully enclosed, transparent vine robot with a passively adapting tip mount, validated in real wastewater pipe inspections, advancing soft robot deployment in industrial settings.

Findings

Successful real-world pipe condition assessment and mapping

Validated hermetic and transparent design in wastewater pipes

Demonstrated robustness and suitability for industrial deployment

Abstract

Rehabilitation of aging pipes requires accurate condition assessment and mapping far into the pipe interiors. Soft growing vine robot systems are particularly promising for navigating confined, sinuous paths such as in pipes, but are currently limited by complex subsystems and a lack of validation in real-world industrial settings. In this paper, we introduce the concept and implementation of a hermetic and transparent vine robot system for visual condition assessment and mapping within non-branching pipes. This design encloses all mechanical and electrical components within the vine robot's soft, airtight, and transparent body, protecting them from environmental interference while enabling visual sensing. Because this approach requires an enclosed mechanism for transporting sensors, we developed, modeled, and tested a passively adapting enclosed tip mount. Finally, we validated the hermetic and transparent vine robot system concept through a real-world condition assessment and mapping task in a wastewater pipe. This work advances the use of soft-growing vine robots in pipe inspection by developing and demonstrating a robust, streamlined, field-validated system suitable for continued development and deployment.