test/expected/SLASHDOT/0102640424.header

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