Fuzzy Control Design and Simulation for Drain Pipe Cleaning Robot

The drainpipe cleaning robot is designed to replace the labour power to clean the municipal sewers automatically. Its main mechanical composition is the mobile carrier, cleaning tool, slide correction device, and cable following delivery and retraction mechanism, driven respectively by a stepper motor equipped with a photoelectrical encoder. Aimed at the unexpected and complex circumstances within the drainage pipeline and the undefined load, two new kinds of fuzzy control algorithms were presented to adjust the stepout of the carrier-driving motor resulting from the overload and the cable following delivery and retraction so as to ensure the stable and reliable operation. The design and simulation of the fuzzy controller were conducted by means of MATLAB and Simulink. The simulation results show that the expected control effect has been obtained because of the introduction of fuzzy control, and the control system has good robustness and anti-interference ability, which means that the fuzzy algorithms are feasible and effective.