Rescue Robot and Pipeline Inspection using Zigbee

Published on 19 May 2022. Written by Vasanth Vidyakar

Often, we hear a lot of news on child being fallen into the borehole that is left uncovered. And it is very difficult to rescue the trapped children. This project provides an efficient solution for this. Through this project you will be designing a robot that is capable of moving inside the pipe according to the user commands.

The robot that you build as a part of this project will be capable of moving in the pipeline and the robot can be operated wirelessly using Zigbee from a remote location. Although there are other ways to establish communication like Bluetooth and WiFi, Zigbee meets the unique needs of sensors and control devices. Zigbee, rather than pushing a technology, it provides a standard solution for the sensors and control systems.

You can use an Arduino Uno board to control the system. You will have to program the robot in such a way that whenever you give commands through zigbee, the actuation should happen accordingly with the help of DC motors. You can also mount a wireless camera onto the robot chassis to facilitate the video surveillance of pipeline. You should also embed a LED light onto the robot to facilitate night vision.

Project Implementation:

The main usage of this robot is to capture images and videos of the inaccessible pipelines and transmit them to a receiver which can be a computer or a TV unit. Here the Arduino Uno (ATMEGA328) will be used as the microcontroller and act as the brain of system.

The hardware implementation in the rescue and pipeline inspection robot are as follows,

Sensor Unit: The sensor unit of the robot consists of the wireless camera that can capture images and transmit them to the receiver unit in the form of digital signals. The camera can be as far as 30 miles away from the receiver. A night vision camera can improve its visibility either by amplifying the available light using image intensifiers or using infrared rays. It simply works on the principle of thermal imaging.
Receiver Unit: The robot will also have a receiver unit which will receive the command signals for controlling the motors and other robot units
Actuator Unit: The major actuator unit present in the robot is the DC motors which facilitates the movement of the robot in all the directions
Control Unit: The robot uses Zigbee to establish the connection. It works on 2.4GHz ISM band with 20~250kbits/s data rate and has a transmission range of upto 1.5 km.

Project Specifications:

10 RPM DC motors are used to actuate the robot and it connected to a 12V, 4.5Amp battery
A controller will drive the motors using a motor driver IC
A Zigbee module is used to send commands from the user end and actuate the robot accordingly with the help of a motor driver
And as per the commands received, it drives the motors by sending signals to the motor driver IC L293D
The L298N is a high current half H- driver designed to provide bidirectional drive currents of up to 600 mA at voltage from 4.5 V to 36V
The wireless camera fitted on the robot works on 12V DC supply and this voltage is taken from the battery that is placed in the robot itself

Software requirements:

You will be needing Arduino IDE software to write and upload the programming logic onto the Arduino Uno board

Programming language: Arduino Programming (C++)

Kit required to develop Rescue Robot and Pipeline Inspection using Zigbee:

Technologies you will learn by working on Rescue Robot and Pipeline Inspection using Zigbee:

Rescue Robot and Pipeline Inspection using Zigbee

Project Implementation:

Project Specifications:

Software requirements:

Any Questions?

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