The purpose of this paper is to describe design and development of a pole climbing robot (PCR) for inspection of industrial size pipelines. Nowadays, non-destructive testing (NDT) methods are performed by dextrous technicians across high-level pipes, frequently carrying dangerous chemicals. This paper reports development of a PCR that can perform in situ manipulation for NDT tests. It introduces a PCR including a novel four-degrees of freedom climbing serial mechanism with the nearly optimal workspace and weight, unique V-shaped grippers and a fast rotational mechanism around the pole axis. Simplicity, safety, minimum weight and manipulability were concerned in the design process. The developed prototype proved possibility of application of PCRs for NDT inspection on elevated structures. Design and development of PCRs which are able to pass bends and T-junctions faces much more difficulties than those which should climb from a straight pole. The robot is successfully tested on an industrial size structure (exterior diameter of 219 mm) with bends and T-junctions. The robot is able to pass bends and T-junctions. The main improvement of this robot in comparison with the previously developed PCRs is its greater maneuverability and safety. First of all, the specific Z-axis rotation mechanism, provides fast manipulation around the structure which is necessary for inspection purposes and furthermore facilitates and accelerates locating the climbing mechanism below a specific bent section in T-junctions. The second reason which increases the maneuverability and safety are grippers. Long V-shaped grippers with their high-inertia system (due to high-ratio gearbox and low-pitch ball screw of the rotation to linear transformation mechanism), allow the robot stay safely on the structure with only one of the grippers, while the other gripper can take the role of a manipulator and manipulates over the pole freely. Moreover, the grippers are tolerant to power failure meaning that they keep their last position in case of power failure without sliding on the structure. Using serial mechanism as the climbing structure has the advantage of a large workspace which results in big climbing steps, good maneuverability and simple control.