 |
Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
|
 |
Pipefish Robot Checks Pipes Cheap
Deteriorating water infrastructure in the United States is accelerating, and fixing it will be expensive - even if you know where to find the leaks. Estimates of lost potable water from infrastructure are that forty percent of water is lost due to leaks.

(Pipefish robot seeks leaks)
Fortunately, there's Pipefish, created by USC's Information Sciences Institute, an autonomous robot able to detect damage.
Created by Wei-Min Shen, director of ISI’s Polymorphic Robotics Lab and research associate professor of computer science at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, the robot is inserted into the water system through existing fire hydrants. The device captures real-time video, using sensors and navigation technology to collect data and log its position as it goes.
Shen has been working with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to develop and test the robot, called Pipefish, for the past year.
Support for the project comes from real estate magnate and philanthropist Michael Keston who, with his wife Linda, created ISI’s first endowed directorship position in 2015.
“This could be a game-changer,” Shen said. “Instead of excavating and replacing every pipe, which is a huge expense, PipeFish can narrow in on specific problems to enable repair before serious damage occurs.”
Science fiction fans know that the Sentinel robots from the Matrix movies are inevitable - Pipefish is one of their progenitors.

(Duct-diving Sentinel robots from The Matrix)
However, given the overall shape of this robot, and the fact that it depends on water flow to move around, makes me think of all of the capsule endoscopy robots we've seen over the past few years. It's pretty much the same problem; send a robot through the pipes and take pictures tied to locations. See the Spider Pill: Wireless Endoscopic Capsule Robot and the Disco Capsule Endoscope Theme Park Video for more.
Via NextBigFuture.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 12/6/2017)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.
| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories -
("
Robotics
")
Humanoid Boxing Robot KO's Opponent - It's A Knockout!
'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.' - Aldo Giunta, 1957
Students Vie For Lunar Regolith Mining Robot Prize
'About time you got here,' the astronaut said. - Pournelle and Niven, 1981.
Robot Hand Creeps Along, Separate From It's Owner
'The crawling... object was V-Stephen's surgeon-hand...' - Philip K. Dick, 1955.
Korean Exoskeleton Suit F1 Helps You Put It On
'Better late than never.'
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!)
is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for
the Invention Category that interests
you, the Glossary, the Invention
Timeline, or see what's New.
|
 |
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Robotic Barber Programmed With a Number of Styles
'He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.'
Humanoid Boxing Robot KO's Opponent - It's A Knockout!
'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.'
Caterpillar Electric Mining Loader Not Yet Ready For Moon
'...the excavations were already in progress, for he saw gray slopes of rubble.'
Centipede Robots Down On The Farm
'...the walking mills of Puffy Products began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.'
Anthropic's Claude AI Creates Legal Citation From Whole Cloth
'Here is a Clerk that would work incessantly, and neither eat, sleep, want payment, or grumble.'
Students Vie For Lunar Regolith Mining Robot Prize
'About time you got here,' the astronaut said.
'They Erased My Memory' Says Ariana Grande
'...using a neutralizing electronic impulse.'
Solitary Black Hole Wanders In Space
'...the Hole is something like a vortex or a whirlpool?'
Spaceplane From Virgin Atlantic
'ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!'
DARPA Wants 'Large Bio-Mechanical Space Structures'
'These are your rudimentary seed packages... Some will combine in place to form more complicated structures.'
Robot Hand Creeps Along, Separate From It's Owner
'The crawling... object was V-Stephen's surgeon-hand...'
Taikonauts Exercise In China's Tiangong Space Station
'Joe got out the gravity-simulator harnesses...'
Korean Exoskeleton Suit F1 Helps You Put It On
'Better late than never.'
Have AI Researchers Given Up On 'Bio-Babies'?
'You couldn't have the capstone without the pyramid to hold it up.'
Bunker Busters and Bore-Pellets
'The first revelation of the new Soviet bore-pellets.'
'Spikeless' Brand Swizzle Stick Detects Spiked Drinks
'the unobtrusive inspections with tiny remote-cast snoopers...'
More SF in the News Stories
More Beyond Technovelgy science news stories
|
 |