Mapping of Pipeline Networks Using ROS and Inertial Navigation Technology

In many cities, buried underground water supply pipelines have become outdated, and their maps have been lost, causing significant difficulties in the daily maintenance and upkeep of these pipelines. To address this issue, this paper focuses on developing a pipeline mapping system based on the ROS platform, utilizing a pipeline robot. The pipeline robot is designed with a structure mimicking an aquatic snake and is equipped with a high-definition camera, multiple sensors, and functionalities such as driving and illumination, allowing it to operate under pressure within the water supply network. The robot's pose and pipeline trajectory are obtained using its onboard 6-axis attitude sensors and odometry wheels. Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) is employed to fuse the 6-axis sensor data to determine the pose, and the same method is used to combine the odometry wheel and IMU data to obtain the robot's trajectory, which is then rendered into a pipeline map. A section of the underground water supply network in a certain area of Beijing was selected as the practical scenario. The rendered map was compared with the actual map, resulting in a comprehensive error of less than 1.5%, demonstrating certain practical engineering value.