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A Robotic Cable Inspection System
Roland Piquepaille writes "In a short article, Popular Science reports that researchers at the University of Washington have built a robotic cable inspection system. This system should help utility companies to maintain their networks of subterranean cables. The robot, dubbed Cruiser, is about 4-feet-long and is designed like a snake. When it detects an anomaly on an underground cable, it sends a message to a human operator via Wi-Fi. The first field tests took place in New Orleans in December 2006. But a commercial version should not be available before 2012."
Hmmm, 4 feet long, designed like a snake...
bring on the pr0n jokes...
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
wouldn't they be Underlords?
Beware of the Leopard.
"That's IT! I have had it with these muthafuckin' splices in these muthafuckin' fiba-optic cables!"
I was just thinking about maintenance robots yesterday. It was during a nice walk along the creek in our town. I was admiring the quaint little stream of water and the stones over which it flowed and the grass through which it wound, and then the rusty shopping cart.
The world will be a more beautiful place when the autonomous robots start to finally appear.
Read my Very Short "Stories"
Yet more piquepaille blog spam. a robotic cable inspection system is the one and only link to hit.
I am a lawyer, but not yours. Anything I tell you might be a total lie intended to benefit my clients at your expense.
WiFi, or any other radio does not work in salt water.
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don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
I think that this is using the term 'robot' a bit loosely. This isn't really any more of a robot than the wireless thermometer that I have outside my kitchen. If you could drop the thing on top of a cable, and it would just wander all over(under?) the city looking for bad cables until you called it home; if it had the ability to make a (psuedo-)decision on what to do next based on its surroundings....THAT would be a robot.
I guess that IMHO a robot should be a machine that could do something that would seem "random" to a casual observer.
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