Development of a pipe cleaning robot for air conditioning system

A pipe cleaning robot for central air-condition named PCV-1 is developed to adapt to the pipe environment. This robot consists of three parts: middle part and front part as well as back part. One part in the middle of the robot is the driving unit, which utilizes the spring mechanism to get the normal pressure and utilizes the active driving wheels to actuate the robot. The front part and back part are similar in structure. These two parts can modulate the turn angle of the robot to realize turn motion for the pipe adaptation. This robot can move in the vertical pipe beside in the horizontal pipe, which enables it move in the air conditioning pipe system. The movement capability of this robot was verified through experiments.