Thank you for helping me out here.
Yeah, I was thinking about attaching a rope to it incase it gets stuck, by putting a pulley at the end or something similar. I will do some more research on it 'inspection robots' first. The robot will be used to enure that the coating inside the pipe is good enough. So after painting, we will put the robot in and see if it has been done right and then go on with the next one or redo the painting. So I will be using it on straight pipes and not ones installed under the ground.
I initially thought about using a wired connection as that would make things easier but I was told that after painting, the robot would be going in at a high temperature (100 celsius approx although I could just put it in when it cools down to something cooler) Also the wires could damage the new coating. Even when we use the rope, we have to make sure it doesnt damage the coating. I thought since the pipe would be on level ground, I could put maybe a xbee signal 'booster' at the pipe opening, just to make sure I get the signal.Would xbee still not work?