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