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About Pipeline Research & Development

The mission of PHMSA’s Pipeline Safety Research & Development Program is to sponsor projects focused on providing technical solutions that will improve pipeline safety, reduce the environmental impact of failures, and enhance the reliability of the Nation’s pipeline transportation system.

The research program has the following objectives:

  • Employ a coordinated and collaborative approach to address mutual pipeline challenges with a wide set of pipeline stakeholders
  • Help remove technical and sometimes regulatory barriers on a given challenge
  • Tell the research story by measuring our research results, outputs, and impacts
  • Promote transparency by posting online R&D program/project actions and products.
Explorer 20/26 Internal Inspection Tool

The Explorer 20/26 robot, a commercially available inspection device for unpiggable natural gas pipelines, is an example of a successful result of PHMSA's public-private R&D partnerships.