| This research project has been undertaken to fulfill the United States Department of Defense (DoD) need for an autonomous vehicle that can perform nondestructive testing of cannon barrels while they are deployed, most likely in remote locations. In response to this directive, a Mechanical Engineering senior design team developed a mechanical chassis with parts, mechanisms, and motors that created the ability to travel inside certain cylindrical structures. This thesis describes the development of the mechanical and electrical engineering design of this original prototype to meet the DoD's design requirements and to make it a complete and operable Field Inspection Vehicle (FIV).;First, changes were made to the mechanical prototype to eliminate pad slippage during FIV operation, increase the potential speed of the FIV, and design a mounting interface and rotational assembly to guide a video borescope and to rotate an eddy current sensor.;After this was completed, an electronic control system, driven by a microcontroller with special code written to it, was implemented to control the stepper motors on the FIV which give motion to its parts. This control system uses firmware to interface the FIV with the microcontroller and manages a 24V DC power supply (to mimics the tank's electrical system) via a designed current regulator circuit.;The completed FIV is capable of moving through various large-bore barrels, automatically or under user control, displaying video images and recording circumferential transducer scans of the barrel's interior surface. This data can be analyzed in real-time or later for statistical purposes and can aid the FIV operator in determining whether the barrel can still be operated safely or should be decommissioned. Using a test specimen, results from the FIV's ET scanning system were compared to those of laboratory NDT techniques. Finally, recommendations were made for future modifications to the FIV. |
