MIT Graduate Creates Robot That Swims Through Pipes To Find Out If They're Leaking (fastcompany.com)

(Thursday September 06, 2018 @11:30PM (BeauHD) from the leak-detecting dept.)


A 28-year-old MIT graduate named You Wu spent six years [1]developing a low-cost robot designed to find leaks in pipes early , both to save water and to avoid bigger damage later from bursting water mains. "Called Lighthouse, the robot looks like a badminton birdie," reports Fast Company. "A soft 'skirt' on the device is covered with sensors. As it travels through pipes, propelled by the flowing water, suction tugs at the device when there's a leak, and it records the location, making a map of critical leaks to fix." From the report:

> MIT doctoral student You Wu spent six years developing the design, building on research that earlier students began under a project sponsored by a university in Saudi Arabia, where most drinking water comes from expensive desalination plants and around a third of it is lost to leaks. It took three years before he had a working prototype. Then Wu got inspiration from an unexpected source: At a party with his partner, he accidentally stepped on her dress. She noticed immediately, unsurprisingly, and Wu realized that he could use a similar skirt-like design on a robot so that the robot could detect subtle tugs from the suction at each leak. Wu graduated from MIT in June, and is now launching the technology through a startup called [2]WatchTower Robotics . The company will soon begin pilots in Australia and in Cambridge, Massachusetts. One challenge now, he says, is creating a guide so water companies can use the device on their own.



[1] https://www.fastcompany.com/90232363/this-leak-seeking-robot-just-won-the-u-s-james-dyson-award

[2] http://watchtowerrobotics.com/

What we are not told ... (Score:1)

by Alain Williams ( 2972 )

is he still with his partner who's dress he trod on ?

pig (Score:1, Informative)

by Anonymous Coward

Congratulations, you reinvented the pig.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigging

Re: (Score:2)

by An Ominous Coward ( 13324 )

Ridiculous, how dare you plebeians libel our foremost technology elite. It's MIT, of course what they're doing is utterly novel and deserving of fawning media coverage.

( [1]https://puretechltd.com/technology/purerobotics-pipeline-inspection-system/ [puretechltd.com])

[1] https://puretechltd.com/technology/purerobotics-pipeline-inspection-system/

They tried that robot in Montreal... (Score:2)

by ls671 ( 1122017 )

I hear they tried that robot in Montreal and it crashed due to memory exhaustion.

Montreal is one of the oldest city in North America and there are so many leaks in its water system that it loses 30% of its fresh water supply.

Makes you wonder what is the average water loss in other systems.

[1]https://montrealgazette.com/ne... [montrealgazette.com]

[2]https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada... [www.cbc.ca]

[1] https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/by-the-numbers-30-percent-of-montreals-water-is-lost-due-to-leaky-city-pipes

[2] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/city-water-leaks-wasting-millions-of-tax-dollars-1.1048035

Badminton Birdie? (Score:2)

by TechyImmigrant ( 175943 )

It's called a shuttlecock you blithering idiot.