Underground sewer pipe lines need maintenance from sources of damage, such as unstable ground support. To mitigate this and other issues the TISCALI project (Technology Innovation for Sewer Condition Assessment using Long-distance Information-systems) is creating an impactor sensor to monitor the properties of underground pipes. This sensor will look for early warning signs. However, in order for the impactor to give useful data, it must located a certain distance and orientation relative to the wall of the sewer.
The aim of this assignment is to create an autonomous system that can be attached to an in pipe robot and can place the impactor at an exact position and orientation in relation to the sewer wall. This system should also minimize the effect recoil from the impactor sensor.
Three different joint configurations were investigated to see how well they satisfied the requirements of the of the system. A 4 Degree of Freedom arm with revolute joints was selected. Then 2 different independent control systems were investigated. The arm was then simulated to test its effectiveness.