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Window Washing a Skyscraper Is Beyond a Robot's Reach
HughPickens.com writes "Patrick McGeehan writes in the NYT that the image of a pair of window washers clinging to a scaffold dangling outside the 68th floor of 1 World Trade Center have left many wondering why robots can't rub soapy water on glass and wipe it off with a squeegee relieving humans of the risk of injury, or death, from a plunge to the sidewalk? The simple answer, several experts say, is that washing windows is something that machines still cannot do as well as people can. "Building are starting to look like huge sculptures in the sky," says Craig Caulkins. "A robot can't maneuver to get around those curves to get into the facets of the building." According to Caulkins robotic cleaning systems tend to leave dirt in the corners of the glass walls that are designed to provide panoramic views from high floors. "If you are a fastidious owner wanting clean, clean windows so you can take advantage of that very expensive view that you bought, the last thing you want to see is that gray area around the rim of the window."
Another reason for the sparse use of robots is that buildings require a lot more maintenance than just window cleaning. Equipment is needed to lower people to repair facades and broken windows, like the one that rescue workers had to cut through with diamond cutters to rescue the window washers. For many years, being a window cleaner in Manhattan was regarded as one of the most dangerous occupations in the world: by 1932, an average of one in every two hundred window cleaners in New York was killed each year. Now all new union window cleaners now take two hundred and sixteen hours of classroom instruction, three thousand hours of accredited time with an employer and their union makes sure workers follow rigorous safety protocols. In all, there are about 700 scaffolds for window washing on buildings in New York City, says union representative Gerard McEneaney. His members are willing to do the work because it pays well: as much $26.89 an hour plus benefits. Many of the window cleaners are immigrants from South America. "They're fearless guys, fearless workers."
Another reason for the sparse use of robots is that buildings require a lot more maintenance than just window cleaning. Equipment is needed to lower people to repair facades and broken windows, like the one that rescue workers had to cut through with diamond cutters to rescue the window washers. For many years, being a window cleaner in Manhattan was regarded as one of the most dangerous occupations in the world: by 1932, an average of one in every two hundred window cleaners in New York was killed each year. Now all new union window cleaners now take two hundred and sixteen hours of classroom instruction, three thousand hours of accredited time with an employer and their union makes sure workers follow rigorous safety protocols. In all, there are about 700 scaffolds for window washing on buildings in New York City, says union representative Gerard McEneaney. His members are willing to do the work because it pays well: as much $26.89 an hour plus benefits. Many of the window cleaners are immigrants from South America. "They're fearless guys, fearless workers."
Where do i sign up?
Human window washers must be cheaper than self-cleaning glass or robots. For now.
For a human, using a sponge and squeegee combo is probably the most effective way to clean a window. For a robot, I would imagine that the answer is something more like a pressure washer, with a hood which covers the work area and reclaims the wash water. The water would then be filtered and reused until the particulate count rose too high, at which point it would be flushed and replaced with fresh. A sheeting additive would be used to cause the water to run off without spotting.
This probably wouldn't replace human window washing entirely, but it seems like it has the potential to replace at least some of the washes.
I've often wondered if anyone has ever tried a project to make a building which washes itself, using a robot designed for the building, and a building designed for the robot. I can imagine many problems with such a project without even undertaking it, mostly related to critters taking up residence in the mechanisms and/or tracks, but if it operated continuously that might well eliminate some of those objections. A universal window washing robot has a more complicated task than such a device would.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
We'll roboticize the whole process and send window washers into space along with hair dressers and telephone sanitizers.
Self cleaning windows won't require any robots either..
I am surprised we have not created a application for glass that would keep windows on these buildings clean without manual washing? I understand that almost any automated system would be costly. I believe with a better material used on the surface that we could at least reduce the frequency of washing these windows.
Using simple magnets the windows could self clean in the same way someone can clean the inside of a fishtank
Old age and treachery almost always overcome youth and skill.
Actually the *last* thing I would want to see from my window would be a passenger jet.
too soon?
I'm going to say there will be a window roomba for skyscrapers within a decade. It's too lucrative a market not to pursue.
The improvement in suction cups have been here for a while. Short of some innovative cleaning system that require little/no water, resupply and dirt offloading can be handled by some ancillary robot that runs back and forth to some main hub.
All that will really be needed is some safety system to keep it falling from pedestrians. If it's a cable, then the ancilliary robot might be done away with as tubing can feed solution downward although I'm dubious about a capable pump upward without weighing the robot down too much.
What will stop it is that human labor is still cheap. Unless insurance costs price them out of the market, robots are doable but fall under that "more trouble than it's worth" niche. So while someone may develop something, not sure on uptake.
all robots, 3d printers, burning man all the time? Perhaps Bennett could weigh in on my infrequent submitter observation.
http://www.acetonestudio.com
Question:
Why are we not designing these buildings with the "robots" built-in?
Surely it can't be that hard to include "self-cleaning window system" in the multi-million dollar installation costs?
I'm shocked that those window cleaners make "up to $26.89" WTF seriously? They just bragged like that was a good number for that sort of work....? I guess, relatively speaking, it might be good for the alternative choices those workers have, but I sure as hell wouldn't do that for $26.89. Why is it that all the high mortality rate jobs have such shitty wages?
Patrick McGeehan has apparently never seen a windshield wiper.
Apparently he's never heard of youtube either:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Seriously people, don't make declarative statements in your professional life without at least doing a google search first.
Surely a remote control device of some sort should suffice, be smaller, faster and good enough if not perfect.
I’m amazed the windows aren't pre-designed for some kind of semi-automatic, rc-controled cleaning device.
There may then be some difficult areas that occasionally need a human crew on the outside, but if you could get this down to 5% or even 20% it would be a big safety win.
I imagine a range of remote units. Some very dumb and cleaning the bulk of the windows, then bigger more expensive units that do the less frequent more intricate edge work.
Letter To Iran
We'll simply demolish buildings with dirty windows and 3D print a new one. Duh, don't be a Luddite!
I figured that the new buildings would be designed for low cost of ownership which would include designing a robotic window cleaning system into the building from the start. As a mechanical engineer my company designs products based upon a spec in which the cost of operation and maintenance is always expected to be low. Maybe architecture is based upon ego instead of money.
Add things to the outside of the building to let the robots work more efficiently.
The idea of mobilized window washers (human or robotic) is inherently flawed. In either scenario, the moving parts can fail and pose a danger to everyone involved (including people on the ground). Why not just fit an irrigation system to the window trim, similar to the windshield washing system on cars? This would eliminate the danger of having a moving object dangling outside the building, and individual windows could be washed on demand.
-Bryan
The original twin towers DID use robotic window washers. They were built in 1971.
This problem has already been resolved, but they didn't design the new building in a way that robotic window washers could be implemented easily.
Oops.
Any pay increase to these low end workers will almost immediately be spent creating economic activity in this country, boosting GDP. Pay increases and/or tax cuts to the top end will add to the two or trillion dollars sitting in the corporate coffers uninvested because there is no good investing opportunities.
When lack of capital was limiting the economic growth it probably made sense to cut cap gains taxes and encourage investing. Now what limits economic growth is the lack of demand. Both capital and labor are abundant.
It is time to treat all income the same way, earned income, interest/dividend income, capital gains, rents ... all should be treated the same to reduce the loop holes. One concession to be given to the really long term (more than 5 years) capital gains is to allow for inflation adjustment for their cost basis.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Windows that flip so both sides can be cleaned from the inside seems like a possible solution to me.
It wasn't that long ago that all LCDs were produced with a manual process of wiping and buffing the liquid crystal onto the glass substrate. No machine could be made to perform the task. This limited the size of panels that could be made and reduced yield with flaws from mistakes and contaminants. They finally automated the process to achieve the panels we have today. The same will be true of window washing robots.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
is hampering the free market. Why, without the union and all that pesky classroom instruction and mentored apprenticing, I bet we could hire 100 window washers at $5 an hour! No need to worry about why robots can't do what my $5 South American Mexican can do. May the power of Axioms absolve you!
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
The Tower which I will always know as the Sears Tower had purpose-built automated washing systems. When you are up in said tower, you can see dozens of other buildings that have rails on the roof for their automated washing systems. It sure seems like a lot of skyscrapers have these systems. Kind of flies in the face of what the article says.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
The wire rope-suspended platforms (stages) they use are considered deathtraps by myself and many of my coworkers. They fail mechanically often, and the redundant safety systems in place would probably kill us anyway. The result of these mechanical failures usually means just failing to get any work done and lot of time-wasting on rooftops, but that's better than being trapped a few hundred feet in the air, or being chunky salsa on the pavement.
I work primarily out of a boson's chair suspended from a heavy static climbing rope rated for a minimum of 5000 pounds of force. We're limited to about 40 stories of height because of rope weight alone, but that's good because we'd be in the chair for too long if on higher buildings. But we love our jobs - as long as it is isn't stage work, which is awful.
I don't work on the left coast, by the way.
Not too soon. Gilbert Gottfried was fucking funny less than a month after 9/11.
Yours wasn't funny, is all.
Assume for a moment that robotic window washers could work:
Who will wash the washers?
The old Worl Trade Center was designed in the 1960's. Just because 40 year old technology wasn't food at it, doesn't mean today's tech couldn't - which I am sure it could.
The difference between communism and libertarianism is that communism is theoretically possible. With libertarianism you either get pure anarchy or you must immediately compromise your definition of "non-coercive government". The fundamental reason for that is that government is actually a (local) monopoly on the use of force.* All of the various property and civil rights are predicated on the use of force to define and defend them — the law is whatever the men-with-guns say it is. Taking away the government's guns just means that some other group becomes the de facto government. The only counter to force is more force.
Beyond the fundamental flaw of libertarianism, there are a host of other market failures that government is intended to work around. Natural monopolies and universal services are always best run by the government, otherwise they amount to privatized taxation. Markets are not necessarily good at pricing everything, especially concerning externalities. Generally a good rule of thumb is to take a look at the definition of perfect competition, and for every factor that is lacking in a given market, up the level of government involvement — probably excepting luxury markets; I'm not going to put my tax dollars towards making those markets more efficient. Competition is a very efficient way to distribute resources most of the time, but as mentioned above, universal services (mail, internet, water, power, defense, etc.) should be nationalized.
*There isn't really a difference between a gang war, a pirate war, and a war between nation-states, in this view.
"Building are starting to look like huge sculptures in the sky,"
Buildings* are starting to look like huge sculptures in the sky.
Ugh.
Seems to me that if you design a skyscraper, you might incorporate windows that drop an interior safety barrier for weather isolation and personal safety, then flip over (all flipping action outside the building) so the inside is the outside, then retract the barrier. Once a week, say Saturday midnight, you flip 'em, and Sunday morning, the staff cleans the (now) inside surface. You get human cleaning flexibility (no dirt too tough) and absolute worker safety. Bonus: provides access for seal replacement, window replacement.
Aside from the flipping-hardware, it just requires a window that fits the opening either way it is oriented, which doesn't seem like much of a serious design constraint.
And hey, wouldn't it look cool to see a skyscraper flipping all its windows in sequence? It'd look like a snake rippling its scales...
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Human window washers must be cheaper than self-cleaning glass or robots. For now.
high rise architecture as sculpture
difficult to navigate, no longer a simple curtain wall.
demands cleaning, maintenance and repair of both windows and facades -- and tenants will settle for nothing less than perfection.
there are no robots who can do this work and that isn't going to change any time soon.
it's all there in the summary.
For comparison, the twin towers of the WTC had 43,600 windows --- over 600,000 square feet of glass. The World Trade Center - Facts and Figures
Just make each window come with a self cleaning Mechanizim, kinda like a carxs windshield wiper. Except make it go up and down the window One way cleans the other squeeges. A running solution tube system through the building (like they are now using for pest control) to wet the scrub/squeege?
Hell, this took me 4 minutes to think of, and I'm an idiot.
"A robot can't maneuver to get around those curves to get into the facets of the building."
That's because the building has a boneheaded design, and probably didn't consider human safety for those trying to maintain is glass facade. I just saw a robotic window washer go past my office window, as it does periodicually. But then, I'm in the Willis (nee Sears) Tower, whose architectects made the radical decision back in the 70s to use ... wait for it ... simple right angles in its design, and spare humans the risk of rappelling down its sides in the typically high winds such elevations endure on a daily basis, just to wash its windows. Pity such forsight wasn't considered this time around, but then, human labor is cheap and "little people's" lives are even cheaper ... besides, we wanted something that looked like it was designed on a fancy new computer, so there!
that's like the bare minimum livable wage for manhattan - if you live in a roach infested walk-up shithole..
these workers obviously don't live there because they can't on that salary, so they also deal with an hour+ commute each way, which in new york, can be as dangerous as their dangerous job.
At least this humanoid already tries to:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3HaK9BQo40o
26.89 union can be better then 30 non union
The problem isn't dirt on the windows, the dirt doesn't affect the performance of the building in any meaningful way. The non-window areas don't need to be cleaned spotless, because the occupants can't see them. The GP's post provides the most economical solution - masking to avoid the appearance of the problem.
Consider this is a solution which has been done for ages in the area of movie projections and photography: no lens can make a perfectly rectangular, evenly lit, properly focused area on a flat surface for a reasonable amount of money. Curving a screen in two dimensions helps a bit, but is also costly. The solution: masking. The outer edge of the screen area is hidden to obscure the flaws. It's done in televisions as well.
As robots get better, the masking can be reduced.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I suspect they wash in pretty harsh weather. And as a union shop it likely means a certain number of paid days off, paid holidays, retirement, medical, training etc. It's true that they may only work 10 months of the year, but there may be "inside" work which needs to be done that can be accomplished during the coldest times (like the aforementioned ongoing safety training, maintenance and repair of gear, etc.), or they go get temp jobs doing inside work (or just take the winter off, like many teachers take the summer off).
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
...but I don't see where the problem is unless you think the humans are too expensive. It's not a dangerous profession the way it used to be.
I wondered why humans cleaned windows on skyscrapers, and I finally got my answer.
Indeed, prime examples of that particular shortcoming are the towers of the original World Trade Center; the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey equipped those buildings with a mechanical apparatus for cleaning their windows, but it worked so poorly that human window washers had to follow behind to catch the spots the machine missed
“If you are a fastidious owner wanting clean, clean windows so you can take advantage of that very expensive view that you bought, the last thing you want to see is that gray area around the rim of the window,” Mr. Caulkins said.
“They want that building sparkling, sparkling clean,” he said.
So, the answer is that skyscraper tenants have lots of money, and want a great view, which includes very clean windows. The tenants pay a lot of money for very clean windows. It's the same reason the US military uses expensive Atlas V and Delta IV rockets to launch their military satellites. The ISS doesn't need reliability, so it gets Falcon 9s.
And yet Google want to replace human drivers with robots? Driving is easier that washing windows?