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The International Journal of Robotics Research
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PIRAT—A System for Quantitative Sewer Pipe Assessment

Robin Kirkham

Patrick D. Kearney

Kevin J. Rogers

CSIRO Manufacturing Science and Technology, Locked Bag 9, Preston 3072 Australia

John Mashford

CSIRO Building, Construction and Engineering, P.O. Box 56, Highett 3190 Australia

Sewers are aging, expensive assets that attract public attention only when they fail. Sewer operators are under increasing pressure to minimise their maintenance costs, while preventing sewer failures. Inspection can give early warning of failures and allow economical repair under noncrisis conditions. Current inspection techniques are subjective and detect only gross defects reliably. They cannot provide the data needed to confidently plan long-term maintenance. This paper describes PIRAT, a quantitative technique for sewer inspection.PIRAT measures the internal geometry of the sewer and then analyses these data to detect, classify, and rate defects automatically using artificial intelligence techniques. We describe the measuring system and present and discuss geometry results for different types of sewers. The defect analysis techniques are outlined and a sample defect report presented. PIRAT’s defect reports are compared with reports from the conventional technique and the discrepancies discussed. We relate PIRAT to other work in sewer robotics.

Key Words: sewer inspection robot • sewer condition assessment • neural network

The International Journal of Robotics Research, Vol. 19, No. 11, 1033-1053 (2000)
DOI: 10.1177/02783640022067959
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