- Role
- Finalist
- Region
- Bay Area
- Pronouns
- he/him/his
Anish Rathod
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Project
PIONEER: Pipe Inspection and Observation for Non-Destructive Evaluation and Environmental Review
Project #9304
Pipes that carry gases like hydrogen or natural gas are vital to modern infrastructure, but they can degrade over time due to corrosion or cracking. These gases are also valuable. Leaks in these pipes can be costly, dangerous, and contribute to environmental harm, so regular inspections are essential. I designed a robot to operate inside gas-carrying industrial pipes and detect damage such as corrosion or cracks. The robot uses ultrasonic and LiDAR sensors to measure distances with sound and light, fusing the data to build a 3D map of the pipe interior. The robot detected defects with millimeter resolution in a galvanized steel pipe. A neural network was trained on an image dataset to detect corrosion, yielding a 97 percent accuracy on test data. Future work will involve integrating the detection software with the robot while upgrading the system to withstand the hazardous environments within gas-carrying pipelines.
- Challenge
- Natural Resources
- Category
- Senior
- Type
- Innovation