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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."
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.'"
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
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.
You're vastly underestimating the difficulties of material science.
"Why don't we just create a material that does the work itself" is the perfect idea of theorycrafting without any idea of what you're talking about.
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
I don't think self-cleaning windows are truly viable at this point in time, but is there any reason to not have windows that simply rotate 180 degrees so that they can be cleaned from the inside?
And the masses cried out, "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0!"
Until you accidentally fall through.
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.
Fifty or more floors up the wind flying through would be enough to usurp anything in your office not nailed down.
You would have to design office spaces such that window washers would be able to get in and clean the windows which is tricky and messy especially given a lot of windows go to people who have offices with locked doors.
There's probably a ton of architectural issues involved with a building where very high up you could potentially have openings on a regular basis. One day one of the revolving windows doesn't close right and Susie from accounting trips and falls and lands on the improperly closed window and falls to her death.
A stock trader on a bad day knows the window can be opened so he jumps to his death
This is something a lot of smart people have thought about for decades and the end result is no, there's not a better way. But let's not stop a bunch of computer engineers on Slashdot from thinking they have a better solution after a couple of minutes brainstorming.
Schnapple
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.
Windows that flip...
They'd probably crash. Although I suppose you could put some screens (preferably blue) to catch them.
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.
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
You're vastly underestimating the difficulties of material science.
There are self-cleaning windows, based on coatings like titanium dioxide. But you need rain and sunlight to make this work --- and where the rain and sun can't reach you still need the window washer. You also need workers who can inspect, clean and repair the facade.
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?
Works great on residences that are 20' high. Not so easy or useful on 1000' structures with 10' tall panes of glass and nearly constant 30-40 MPH winds.
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.
In skyscrapers? Suicides probably factor in. Also not wanting to disturb all the residents of the various level of the tower.
I don't read AC A human right
I don't doubt there are somewhat self-cleaning windows, but I am criticizing GP's sentiment of "why don't we just invent something to clean itself?" as the equivalent of "why don't we use magic?" or "why don't we use cyborgs?"