A benchmark mechatronics platform to assess the inspection around pipes with variable pitch quadrotor for industrial sites

This paper investigates the inspection-of-pipe topic in a new framework, by rotation around a pipe, peculiar to industrial sites and refineries. The evolution of the ultimate system requires prototype design and preliminary tests. A new benchmark has been designed and built to mimic the rotation around a pipe, with the main purpose of assessing the different types of rotors and control systems. The benchmark control system presents a mechatronics package including mechanical design and machining, electronics and motor drive, motor-blade installation, computer programming, and control implementation. The benchmark is also modular, working with two modes of one- and two-degree-of-freedom (DoF), easily interchangeable. To cover a full rotation, conventional fixed-pitch drones fail to provide negative thrusts; nonetheless, variable-pitch (VP) rotor quadcopters can produce that in both directions. A closed-loop nonlinear optimal controller is chosen for communication, so-called, “the state-dependent Riccati equation (SDRE)” approach. Optimal control policies are challenging for experimentation though it has been successfully done in this report. The advantage of the VP is also illustrated in a rotation plus radial motion in comparison with fixed-pitch rotors while a wind gust disturbs the inspection task. The proposed VP system compensated the disturbance while the fixed pitch was pushed away by the wind gust. The solution methods to the SDRE were mixed, a closed-form exact solution for the one-DoF system, and a numerical one for the two-DoF. Solving the Riccati online in each time step is a critical issue that was effectively solved by the implementation approach, through online communication with MATLAB software. Both simulations and experiments have been performed along with a discussion to prove the application of VP systems in rotary-motion pipe inspection.