Joey’s design. Image credit: TL Nguyen, A Blight, A Pickering, A Barber, GH Jackson-Mills, JH Boyle, R Richardson, M Dogar, N Cohen
By Mischa Dijkstra, Frontiers science writer
Researchers from the University of Leeds have developed the first mini-robot, called Joey, that can find its own way independently through networks of narrow pipes underground, to inspect any damage or leaks. Joeys are cheap to produce, smart, small, and light, and can move through pipes inclined at a slope or over slippery or muddy sediment at the bottom of the pipes. Future versions of Joey will operate in swarms, with their mobile base on a larger ‘mother’ robot Kanga, which will be equipped with arms and tools for repairs to the pipes.
Beneath our streets lies a maze of pipes, conduits for water, sewage, and gas. Regular inspection of these pipes for leaks, or repair, normally requires these to be dug up. The latter is not only onerous and expensive – with an estimated annual cost of £5.5bn in the UK alone – but causes disruption to traffic as well as nuisance to people living nearby, not to mention damage to the environment.
Now imagine a robot that can find its way through the narrowest of pipe networks and relay images of damage or obstructions to human operators. This isn’t a pipedream anymore, shows a study in Frontiers in Robotics and AI by a team of researchers from the University of Leeds.
“Here we present Joey – a new miniature robot – and show that Joeys can explore real pipe networks completely on their own, without even needing a camera to navigate,” said Dr Netta Cohen, a professor at the University of Leeds and the final author on the study.
Joey is the first to be able to navigate all by itself through mazes of pipes as narrow as 7.5 cm across. Weighing just 70 g, it’s small enough to fit in the palm of your hand.
The present work forms part of the ‘Pipebots’ project of the universities of Sheffield, Bristol, Birmingham, and Leeds, in collaboration with UK utility companies and other international academic and industrial partners.
First author Dr Thanh Luan Nguyen, a postdoctoral scientist at the University of Leeds who developed Joey’s control algorithms (or ‘brain’), said: “Underground water and sewer networks are some of the least hospitable environments, not only for humans, but also for robots. Sat Nav is not accessible undergound. And Joeys are tiny, so have to function with very simple motors, sensors, and computers that take little space, while the small batteries must be able to operate for long enough.”
Joey moves on 3D-printed ‘wheel-legs’ that roll through straight sections and walk over small obstacles. It is equipped with a range of energy-efficient sensors that measure its distance to walls, junctions, and corners, navigational tools, a microphone, and a camera and ‘spot lights’ to film faults in the pipe network and save the images. The prototype cost only £300 to produce.
The team showed that Joey is able to find its way, without any instructions from human operators, through an experimental network of pipes including a T-junction, a left and right corner, a dead-end, an obstacle, and three straight sections. On average, Joey managed to explore about one meter of pipe network in just over 45 seconds.
To make life more difficult for the robot, the researchers verified that the robot easily moves up and down inclined pipes with realistic slopes. And to test Joey’s ability to navigate through muddy or slippery tubes, they also added sand and gooey gel (actually dishwashing liquid) to the pipes – again with success.
Importantly, the sensors are enough to allow Joey to navigate without the need to turn on the camera or use power-hungry computer vision. This saves energy and extends Joey’s current battery life. Whenever the battery runs low, Joey will return to its point of origin, to ‘feed’ on power.
Currently, Joeys have one weakness: they can’t right themselves if they inadvertently turn on their back, like an upside-down tortoise. The authors suggest that the next prototype will be able to overcome this challenge. Future generations of Joey should also be waterproof, to operate underwater in pipes entirely filled with liquid.
The Pipebots scientists aim to develop a swarm of Joeys that communicate and work together, based off a larger ‘mother’ robot named Kanga. Kanga, currently under development and testing by some of the same authors at Leeds School of Computing, will be equipped with more sophisticated sensors and repair tools such as robot arms, and carry multiple Joeys.
“Ultimately we hope to design a system that can inspect and map the condition of extensive pipe networks, monitor the pipes over time, and even execute some maintenance and repair tasks,” said Cohen.
“We envision the technology to scale up and diversify, creating an ecology of multi-species of robots that collaborate underground. In this scenario, groups of Joeys would be deployed by larger robots that have more power and capabilities but are restricted to the larger pipes. Meeting this challenge will require more research, development, and testing over 10 to 20 years. It may start to come into play around 2040 or 2050.”
Top half: navigating through a T-junction in the pipe network. Bottom half: encountering an obstruction and turning back. Image credit: TL Nguyen, A Blight, A Pickering, A Barber, GH Jackson-Mills, JH Boyle, R Richardson, M Dogar, N Cohen
Top half: moving through sand, slippery goo, or mud. Bottom half: moving through pipe sloped at an angle. Image credit: TL Nguyen, A Blight, A Pickering, A Barber, GH Jackson-Mills, JH Boyle, R Richardson, M Dogar, N Cohen
Image generated by DALLE 2 using prompt “a hyperrealistic image of a robot watching robot videos on a laptop”
Did you manage to watch all the holiday robot videos of 2022? If you did but are still hungry for more, I have a few more videos from Science Magazine featuring robotics research that were released during last year. Enjoy!
By Paul Cureton (Senior Lecturer in Design (People, Places, Products), Lancaster University) and Ole B. Jensen (Professor of Urban Theory and Urban Design, Aalborg University)
Drones are already shaping the face of our cities – used for building planning, heritage, construction and safety enhancement. But, as studies by the UK’s Department of Transport have found, swathes of the public have a limited understanding of how drones might be practically applied.
It’s crucial that the ways drones are affecting our future are understood by the majority of people. As experts in design futures and mobility, we hope this short overview of five ways drones will affect building design offers some knowledge of how things are likely to change.
Infographic showcasing other ways drones will influence future building design. Nuri Kwon, Drone Near-Futures, Imagination Lancaster, Author provided
Drones can take photographs of buildings, which are then used to build 3D models of buildings in computer-aided design software.
These models have accuracy to within a centimetre, and can be combined with other data, such as 3D scans of interiors using drones or laser scanners, in order to provide a completely accurate picture of the structure for surveyors, architects and clients.
Using these digital models saves time and money in the construction process by providing a single source thaOle B. Jensent architects and planners can view.
Studio Drift are a multidisciplinary team of Dutch artists who have used drones to construct images through theatrical outdoor drone performances at damaged national heritage sites such as the Notre Dame in Paris, Colosseum in Rome and Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.
Drones could be used in the near-future in a similar way to help planners to visualise the final impact of restoration or construction work on a damaged or partially finished building.
The arrival of drone delivery services will see significant changes to buildings in our communities, which will need to provide for docking stations at community hubs, shops and pick-up points.
Wingcopter are one of many companies trialling delivery drones. Akash 1997, CC BY-SA
There are likely to be landing pads installed on the roofs of residential homes and dedicated drone-delivery hubs. Research has shown that drones can help with the last mile of any delivery in the UK, Germany, France and Italy.
Architects of the future will need to add these facilities into their building designs.
Two research projects from architecture, design, planning, and consulting firm Gensler and another from a consortium led by Imperial College London (comprising University College London, University of Bath, University of Pennsylvania, Queen Mary University of London, and Technical University of Munich) named Empa have been experimenting with drones with mounted 3D printers. These drones would work at speed to construct emergency shelters or repair buildings at significant heights, without the need for scaffolding, or in difficult to reach locations, providing safety benefits.
Gensler have already used drones for wind turbine repair and researchers at Imperial College are exploring bee-like drone swarms that work together to construct blueprints. The drones coordinate with each other to follow a pre-defined path in a project called Aerial Additive Manufacturing. For now, the work is merely a demonstration of the technology, and not working on a specific building.
In the future, drones with mounted 3D printers could help create highly customised buildings at speed, but how this could change the workforce and the potential consequences for manual labour jobs is yet to be understood.
Drones offer new possibilities for surveillance away from the static, fixed nature of current systems such as closed circuit television.
Drones with cameras and sensors relying on complex software systems such as biometric indicators and “face recognition” will probably be the next level of surveillance applied by governments and police forces, as well as providing security monitoring for homeowners. Drones would likely be fitted with monitoring devices, which could communicate with security or police forces.
Drones used in this way could help our buildings become more responsive to intrusions, and adaptable to changing climates. Drones may move parts of the building such as shade-creating devices, following the path of the sun to stop buildings overheating, for example.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Claire chatted to Gopal Ramchurn from the University of Southampton about artificial intelligence, autonomous systems and renewable energy.
Sarvapali (Gopal) Ramchurn is a Professor of Artificial Intelligence, Turing Fellow, and Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology. He is the Director of the UKRI Trustworthy Autonomous Systems hub and Co-Director of the Shell-Southampton Centre for Maritime Futures. He is also a Co-CEO of Empati Ltd, an AI startup working on decentralised green hydrogen technologies. His research is about the design of Responsible Artificial Intelligence for socio-technical applications including energy systems and disaster management.
Claire chatted to Ferdinando Rodriguez y Baena from Imperial College London about medical robotics, robotic surgery, and translational research.
Ferdinando Rodriguez y Baena is Professor of Medical Robotics in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College, where he leads the Mechatronics in Medicine Laboratory and the Applied Mechanics Division. He has been the Engineering Co-Director of the Hamlyn Centre, which is part of the Institute of Global Health Innovation, since July 2020. He is a founding member and great advocate of the Imperial College Robotics Forum, now the first point of contact for roboticists at Imperial College.
Claire chatted to Séverin Lemaignan from PAL Robotics all about social robots, behaviour, and robot-assisted human-human interactions.
Séverin Lemaignan is Senior Scientist at Barcelona-based PAL Robotics. He leads the Social Intelligence team, in charge of designing and developing the socio-cognitive capabilities of robots like PAL TIAGo and PAL ARI. He obtained his PhD in Cognitive Robotics in 2012 from the CNRS/LAAS and the Technical University of Munich, and worked at Bristol Robotics Lab as Associate Professor in Social Robotics, before moving to industry. His research primarily concerns socio-cognitive human-robot interaction, child-robot interaction and human-in-the-loop machine learning for social robots.
Claire chatted to Simon Wanstall from the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics all about soft robotics, robotic prostheses, and taking inspiration from nature.
Simon Wanstall is a PhD student at the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics, working on advancements in soft robotic prosthetics. His research interests include soft robotics, bioinspired design and healthcare devices. Simon’s current project is to develop soft sensors so that robotic prostheses can feel the world around them. In order to develop his skills in this area, Simon is also undertaking an industrial placement with Touchlab, a robotics company specialising in sensors.
Claire chatted to Amanda Prorok from the University of Cambridge all about self-driving cars, industrial robots, and multi-robot systems.
Amanda Prorok is Professor of Collective Intelligence and Robotics in the Department of Computer Science and Technology at Cambridge University, and a Fellow of Pembroke College. She is interested in finding practical methods for hard coordination problems that arise in multi-robot and multi-agent systems.
Claire chatted to Sina Sareh from the Royal College of Art all about industrial inspection, soft robotics, and robotic grippers.
Sina Sareh is the Academic Leader in Robotics at Royal College of Art. He is currently a Reader (Associate Professor) in Robotics and Design Intelligence at RCA, and a Fellow of EPSRC, whose research develops technological solutions to problems of human safety, access and performance involved in a range of industrial operations. Dr Sareh holds a PhD from the University of Bristol, 2012, and served as an impact assessor of Sub-panel 12: Engineering in the assessment phase of the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021.
Claire chatted to Ana Cavalcanti from the University of York all about software development, testing and verification, and autonomous mobile robots.
Ana Cavalcanti is a Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies. She is the leader of the RoboStar centre of excellence on Software Engineering for Robotics. The RoboStar approach to model-based Software Engineering complements current practice of design and verification of robotic systems, covering simulation, testing, and proof. It is practical, supported by tools, and yet mathematically rigorous.
What is your favourite fictional robot?
What is your advice for a robotics career?
What is your favourite machine or tool?
Could you be friends with a robot?
A day in the life
