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Robots to Crawl Under the City
Johan Louwers writes "Robots will crawl tubes in a short while to investigate power cables running in the tubes to make sure they are still undamaged or in need for a repair. The Robotic Cable Inspection System is developed by Alexander Mamishev, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at the University of Washington.
Making use of infrared thermal analysis and acoustic partial discharge analysis, the robot will be checking mile after mile of cable while crawling his way in the tubes."
Robots...
Tubes...
For a moment, I thought he was talking about the interweb!
Life is not for the lazy.
How the Sentinels got their start.
snarkth
I, for one, welcome our new robotic underlords.
"to make sure they are still undamaged or in need for a repair"
What else could they possibly be? Do we need robots to make sure boolean variables are either 0 or 1, too?
Now where are we humans going to hide when Skynet becomes active?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I would hope they would make them easy to identify and track, Imagine stumbling upon some weird robotic beasty that washed out of a storm drain and thinking it's the beginning of the robot revolution or something, Maybe they could just write "NOT EVIL" in magic marker or something, that would make ME feel better.
Between the realm of 0 and 1 lies the vast land known as Round-Off Error.
I hear these horror stories of dealing with the chaos of tranmission lines running under cities. Can the robots really navigate these spiderwebs or do they need special conditions? From the look of this thing you would need straight lines, plenty of clearance, and two rails running next to each transmission line.
The final scene involves a huge explosion or EMP burst that destroys all the robots but also leaves everyone in the sewer in complete darkness. Cut, print, that's a wrap. Where's my money?
The SMART PIG is used to check on gas pipes. It saves a fortune on using the old, dumb pigs that they used to have to force through the pipes to inspect/clean them prior to the invention of Magnetic Flux Leakage techniques.
There is a pretty good SMART PIG display at the Manchester Sci/Tech museum (free) with an actual 80's vintage inspection unit donated by British Gas.
Beep beep.
Making use of infrared thermal analysis and acoustic partial discharge analysis, the robot will be checking mile after mile of cable while crawling his way in the tubes.
Well, since they're checking the tubes, maybe they can find the internet that Ted Stevens' staff sent him last Friday. It's all tangled up in there.
Push Button, Receive Bacon
Sounds like a good idea. But I bet theyll lose a lot of robots, especially in old cities like boston/new york.
C.H.U.D.
We desperately NEED something to keep the tubes clear. Sometimes it takes a whole WEEK for an Internet to get to me!
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Here in Santa Cruz, we're currently using robots to inspect our sewers. My buddy made a TV show (on Community TV--like Public Access) of the raw footage from the sewer robot set to soothing music. Must-see TV!!
Nothing interesting to say...MUST...NOT...REPLY...ohtheheckwithit.
I for one welcome our new robotic Over^H^H^H^H err Underlords!
ACK NAK RST
Reminds me of the repair spiders in Deus Ex. Now all we have to do is equip them with weapons and they can hunt sneaky terrists. Funny how all the classic conspiracy theories/times leading up to bad things in history are mirrored in our current societal situation. Makes you wonder if the signs always foreshadow the bad things, or if there are times where the crisis was averted and history just doesn't remember them.
If these robots can go into tubes, maybe when the internets are clogged they can help us out?
I'm not a paid member; can someone please tag this story "ReallyBadInternetJokeBait"?
Great, how long before they start using similar robots to check your prostate?
(Ha! You thought this was going to be another reference to The Matrix/Terminator, didn't you?)
Next thing you know, sewers are crawling with Hunter-Killers.
You never expect irony, do you?
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@iyfwrestling
Last year, my webpage describing how I did something similar (but spectacularly cheaper with the commensurate drop in ability) using some off the shelf electronics and an R/C toy was featured here on Slashdot, my first slashdotting!
http://hallert.net/misc/tankcam/tankcam.html
There are other crawlspaces out there, get under your houses and make your own robots do your bidding!
is if they leeched power from the cables at open nodes in the system and just roamed on a set path at all times.
Autonomous little service droids, keeping everything working - now that's the future.
In tubes?? Get those friggin robots outa my internets!
Too bad they can't train rats to do this. They're ubiquitous in cities, they run off readily available biomass fuel, and they automaticly replace themselves when they wear out. Of course, I'm being facetious. Really, it would be nice if the robots could be programmed to kill rats too.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Sarah and Neo are gonna be pissed!
"Robots will crawl tubes in a short while to investigate power cables running in the tubes to make sure they are still undamaged or in need for a repair."
... the tubes are clogged with wires!
So that's why my connection is so slow
...is how it begins, you know that right?
This is a sig. It is like every other sig in the world, except that it is mine, and it is different.
Ever seen Minority Report and that little robotic spiders were unleashed in an apartment building? The spiders interrupted various activities of the people in the building (of which a few should be unnecessary to directly name) an example being people taking a bath. I suppose you would consider that *neat*. I good sir, do not, that's an invasion of privacy.
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"checking mile after mile of cable while crawling his way in the tubes."
Why does it have to be a male robot?
Don't anthropomorphize robots--they hate it when you do that.
...omphaloskepsis often...
The Electrician's Union will never let this machine see the light of day...
American Unions! Keeping Americans Employed! Hoora!
It's that time again!
As many of you know, each year the Internet must be shut down for 24 hours in order to allow us to clean it. The cleaning process, which eliminates dead email, inactive ftp and www sites, and empty USENET groups, allows for a better working and faster Internet tubes.
This year the cleaning process will take place from 12:01 a.m. GMT on April 1 until 12:01 a.m. GMT on April 2 (the time least likely to interfere with ongoing work). During that 24-hour period, five powerful tube-cleaning robots situated around the world will search the tubes and delete any data that they find....
"... while crawling his way in the tubes." His? Bots with schlongs inspecting the bowels of civilization. Sounds like recreational proctology meets SimCity. I scan my own groceries. The Future is NOW!
All these posts about Skynet, Robot overlords... etc. Yes they're posting for mod funny, but really, this is just another use for our current technology. Theres nothing new in the way of AI here. I for one welcome the new model of robot slaves...
...They are coming fast
and they are hungry
the tube-eating sewer robots!!
Eclipse PDE and Me
I worked under Prof. Mamishev on a different robotics project a couple years back, but heard about this one in class. Took me by surprise to see this on Slashdot, but it always looked like an awesome project.
"They came for the children late at night, while parents slept blissfully unaware. They were never heard from again..."
Then come the Knight Sabers!!
mmmmm, babes in Hard Suits!
I, for one, welcome our new robotic underlords.
Oh No! Now old people cannot even bury their medicine in their backyards anymore. These new spelunking robots will still find the medicine and eat it for fuel!
Hmmmm.... interesting.