Metamorphic tensegrity structure for pipe inspection

This paper proposes a new concept of metamorphic tensegrity structure for pipe inspection. A new structural deformation technique is developed that can be employed to design a non-complex and lightweight robot or vehicle. This concept is to deform the cross-shaped tensegrity structure by using the cooperation of prismatic actuators (PAs) and passive joints with locking mechanisms called restrictor mechanisms (RMs). Two control levels are designed to control the structural deformation: A high-level controller for motion patterns and low-level controllers to locally control the PA lengths and restrict the cable lengths of four RMs. Experiments show that the proposed deformation technique can deform the shape and size of the tensegrity structures with the aim of creating a new generation of pipe inspection robots.