Usually, to inspect drainpipes robots are used these days. Robots are especially required to inspect drainpipes with hazardous materials and the robots, also called ‘pigs’ are driven inside using gas pressure or by some other liquid and the robots take pictures, inspect and sometimes resolve the problems as well. However, robots cannot reach many places and are unpiggable. Hence, Zhelong Wang and Hong Gu of Dalian University of Technology have created a bristled robot that moves on its own power. The cylindrical robot has long steel bristles that work just like bottle bristles and clean the pipes. The advantage of this robot is that it can conform to changes in shape and size is divided into 2 or 3 sections. A pneumatic cylinder connects each pair and when the cylinder pushes the body pieces apart, the rear chunk cannot move and the other move is pushed forward. It needs an electric supply and also data connection. The robot has been successfully tested in broken pipes, unpiggable pipelines etc.

Via: NewScientist291970