The article discusses the challenges in inspecting petrochemical pipelines due to hazardous materials, inaccessible locations, and narrow diameters. The project aimed to develop a mobile robot for autonomous pipeline inspection and mapping. The robot was equipped with Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) capabilities to navigate and map an indoor maze-like environment representing simplified pipelines. The approach involved simulating a differential drive robot in Gazebo/ROS, fitting it with sensors, and implementing SLAM using mapping and path planning. The final map showed a reasonable correlation with the real maze, demonstrating the feasibility of using ROS-based SLAM for pipeline inspection.
Publication date: 21 Nov 2023
Project Page: Not provided
Paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2311.11948
