FURI | Spring 2023

Design Optimization of a Lizard-Inspired Tube Inspection Robot

The main objective of this research is to take the lizard-inspired pipe inspection robot from the laboratory to the actual field and ensure that it can be operated with minimal to no issues. The areas of improvement in the robot’s design were weight, size, travel speed, and improving the performance of each joint, as well as fixing the previous design’s issues. Through fixing the issues and making these improvements, this robot would reduce the time spent offline by power plants and reduce the chance for human error in manual inspections, thereby ensuring that the power systems are steady and able to constantly generate power. To further improve on this robot and idea, research should be conducted on the friction pads themselves, and potentially researching different configurations and designs of a climbing robot based on nature.