I need pdf files for ball shaped robots used in nuclear power plants

Robots are used to perform automated and repetitive work. It brings workers' safety and regulation and profitability. They are used for inspection and maintenance of critical and hazardous systems such as reactor vessel inspection, underwater inspection and pipeline inspection. Ball Shaped Robots are developed by the Massachuttus Institute of Technology. They are designed to efficiently enter underground pipelines. It is the size of an egg. Using there the inspection of robots is done without digging the buried pipes. Signs of corrosion and leakage. On board the camera takes pictures along the inside of the pipe. They have wireless submarine communications capability over distances of up to 100m.

Plant inspectors usually employ indirect methods to monitor buried pipelines, such as running an electric current through them to identify corroded sections or using ultrasound technology to search for cracks because direct monitoring would require digging up pipes for visual inspection, which is Costly and time-intensive.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are now developing small egg-shaped robots that will be able to navigate underground networks of pipes for cracking and corrosion. Equipped with cameras, robots could transmit images in real time.

Ball Robots (MIT)
A cut of the robotic ball being developed by MIT researchers

Harry Asada, Ford's Professor of Engineering in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and director of MIT's Arbeloff Laboratory for Information Systems and Technology, heads the team.

Robotic devices take the form of smooth metallic balls, with no visible signs of propellers or rudders to move and direct them through an underwater environment. Asada said a robot equipped with any "appendage" could easily get trapped inside the pipes because of various internal structures like sensor probes and joints. "So we had to do [our design] extremely fail-safe," he said.

Researchers have devised a network of special Y-shaped valves that can be created using 3D printing across the surface of the device. By closing certain valves, thus channeling water jets through others, the spherical robots can be propelled in a particular direction.

Originally it was planned that the robots would use their onboard cameras to take and store images of the interior of the pipes. The devices would then be retrieved and the images examined. However, Asada and his team now intend to equip devices with underwater wireless communications, using laser optics to transmit images in real time over distances of up to 100 meters. They are also working on a "eyeball" mechanism that would allow the camera to pan and tilt while the robot is standing still. To achieve this, researchers have installed a two-axis pivot support system that allows them to change the center of gravity of the device.