A tiny inspection robot can enter 90mm water pipes, helping utilities find hidden defects without digging up roads.
IIT Madras-incubated startup Solinas Integrity has developed a compact pipeline inspection robot designed to enter water pipelines as small as 90mm in diameter. The Endo90 targets older distribution networks where corrosion, scaling and deposits can further reduce the usable internal diameter, making inspection difficult for larger crawlers.
In a recent conversation, Arokiaraj Benjamin, head – marketing communications, Solinas Integrity Pvt Ltd, said the compact design addresses a specific challenge in India’s underground water networks. According to the company, many local distribution pipelines range from 90mm to 150mm in diameter, while ageing pipes can develop internal scaling and corrosion. The Endo90 was developed specifically to navigate these constrained pipelines rather than adapting a larger inspection crawler.
Instead of repeatedly excavating roads to locate pipeline faults, the robot can be inserted through an available opening or access point and travel inside the pipe. Inspection footage can be used to identify problems such as blockages, contamination points, scaling, rust, illegal connections and other pipeline defects.
The robot is paired with Solinas’ Swasth AI platform, which analyses inspection footage, categorises and grades defects, and generates reports for utilities. A single inspection can create a digital record of pipeline condition, including the location and severity of detected problems, while also supporting network mapping and condition assessment.
The Endobot family currently covers pipeline sizes from about 90mm to more than 2000 mm, with different robots intended for water, sewer and stormwater applications.
The overarching objective is to reduce dependence on excavation and complaint-driven repairs. Once underground pipelines are digitised, utilities can use inspection records to identify sections that need attention before a major failure occurs.
Arokiaraj said, “Our robots and AI platform are designed to help municipalities move from reactive maintenance to preventive maintenance. The technology enables inspection, defect detection, condition assessment, and digital mapping, rather than simply identifying a single reported fault.”
For India’s ageing underground water infrastructure, the significance of the 90-mm robot is therefore not simply its size. It is the ability to bring robotic inspection into smaller distribution pipelines that have traditionally been difficult to inspect without excavation.
