Tatsy

Through our personal experience and connections within the pipeline and drainage industry, we found that current industry rovers were heavy and at times unreliable. These issues tend to slow down the pipe inspection process costing companies both valuable time and money. Furthermore, these concerns were personally voiced within our interviews with current technicians and managers that have worked in the industry. Our design addresses the following issues: 

• Reliability: There are intrinsic issues of reliability with a wired connection for the industrial rovers. These cables tend to fray and thus start to have connection issues over time as they continually rub against the interior pipe walls when reeling the rovers in. Also, since the weight of these machines are so heavy (upwards of 35 pounds), workers create a bad habit of using the cable to help control the rover when placing and removing them from the pipes, which weakens the cable’s connection point. Therefore, our wireless solution removes the issue of fraying important wires used for the video and control of the rover.  

• Weight: The weight of these machines are usually quite heavy (upwards of 45 pounds), workers tend to have a bad habit of using the cable to help control the rover when placing and removing them from the pipes, which weakens the cable’s connection point. Removing the wired connection point and replacing it with a wireless solution not only makes our rover much more wieldy, but it also helps instill better working habits.

The use of wireless connection is what differentiates us from our competitors. Currently, many companies use a hefty cable to send and receive data and controls. We use a wireless modem known as MLink developed by AuroraWireless to send reliable control data to the rover. Additionally, the video feed uses wireless transmission with the placement of the transmitter at the base of the pipe to allow for a clearer video connection. This allows us to create a product independent of problems associated with wired connections, along with dramatically reducing the overall weight of the system. 

Our design is effective because it tackles the main issue of reliability and convenience for our rover users. Our proposed rover design removes the heavy cabling that many industry rovers use for the data transfer and power. Without heavy wired cabling, our rover is free to maneuver down pipelines without the worry of cable detachment during inspections. The design process has also considered the ease of use of our rover. The innovative wireless design also reduces the overall weight of the rover for the convenience of the user. These changes of the removal of the power cabling and unnecessary weight allows for efficient and quicker pipeline inspections 

We had a checklist of necessary features our final design needed to incorporate. Our main metric of success is integrating the fully wireless data transfer system. Other key points are our control station application connecting to the rover during inspections and the viewing of the video footage. We also performed several tests on our final prototype to check the validity of our design. These tests included a test run through a short pipe as well as some tests having the rover try to traverse the pipe at different inlines to check its traction in non-ideal conditions.

We believe that from the support we have garnered from our sponsors and potential customers, the idea and innovative design is feasible from both a technical and business perspective. The main aspect of the wireless solution has been proven successful in both an underground and above ground setting. In the future, for our business feasibility we would need to ensure that our rover can compete with the current industry competitors on all aspects such as material quality, waterproofing, and marketing.