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1 | 0MIT Graduate Creates Robot That Swims Through Pipes To Find Out If They're Leaking (fastcompany.com) null/SLASHDOT/0102640424 70\r |
2 | i Thursday September 06, 2018 @11:30PM (BeauHD)\r | |
3 | i from the leak-detecting dept.\r | |
4 | i\r | |
5 | i A 28-year-old MIT graduate named You Wu spent six years\r | |
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6 | i [1]developing a low-cost robot designed to find leaks in pipes\r |
7 | i early , both to save water and to avoid bigger damage later\r | |
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8 | i from bursting water mains. "Called Lighthouse, the robot looks\r |
9 | i like a badminton birdie," reports Fast Company. "A soft\r | |
10 | i 'skirt' on the device is covered with sensors. As it travels\r | |
11 | i through pipes, propelled by the flowing water, suction tugs at\r | |
12 | i the device when there's a leak, and it records the location,\r | |
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13 | i making a map of critical leaks to fix." From the report:\r |
14 | i \r | |
15 | i > MIT doctoral student You Wu spent six years developing the\r | |
16 | i design, building on research that earlier students began under\r | |
17 | i a project sponsored by a university in Saudi Arabia, where\r | |
18 | i most drinking water comes from expensive desalination plants\r | |
19 | i and around a third of it is lost to leaks. It took three years\r | |
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20 | i before he had a working prototype. Then Wu got inspiration\r |
21 | i from an unexpected source: At a party with his partner, he\r | |
22 | i accidentally stepped on her dress. She noticed immediately,\r | |
23 | i unsurprisingly, and Wu realized that he could use a similar\r | |
24 | i skirt-like design on a robot so that the robot could detect\r | |
25 | i subtle tugs from the suction at each leak. Wu graduated from\r | |
26 | i MIT in June, and is now launching the technology through a\r | |
e818d449 | 27 | i startup called [2]WatchTower Robotics . The company will soon\r |
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28 | i begin pilots in Australia and in Cambridge, Massachusetts. One\r |
29 | i challenge now, he says, is creating a guide so water companies\r | |
30 | i can use the device on their own.\r | |
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31 | i \r |
32 | i \r | |
33 | i \r | |
34 | i [1] https://www.fastcompany.com/90232363/this-leak-seeking-rob-\r | |
35 | i ot-just-won-the-u-s-james-dyson-award\r | |
36 | i \r | |
37 | i [2] http://watchtowerrobotics.com/\r | |
299a08f3 | 38 | i\r |