Robotic devices for water main in-pipe inspection: A survey

Many water companies have a limited knowledge of the structural condition of their assets. Underground assets have been installed for a long time, so they are old and are failing, leading to leaks, breaks, and consequential damage to third parties. A common practice is the removal of pipe sections for condition assessment, causing service interruption and resulting in the assessment of a small percentage of the network as well as high replacement costs. Systematic condition assessment of pipes could help to prevent network problems as well as in proposing an efficient investment plan. This can be performed by using robotic inspection devices. Toward this end, this paper reviews existing robotic tools and analyzes open problems to be addressed for a successful robotic inspection device. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.