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MIT Graduate Creates Robot That Swims Through Pipes To Find Out If They're Leaking (fastcompany.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the leak-detecting dept.

A 28-year-old MIT graduate named You Wu spent six years developing a low-cost robot designed to find leaks in pipes early, both to save water and to avoid bigger damage later from bursting water mains. "Called Lighthouse, the robot looks like a badminton birdie," reports Fast Company. "A soft 'skirt' on the device is covered with sensors. As it travels through pipes, propelled by the flowing water, suction tugs at the device when there's a leak, and it records the location, making a map of critical leaks to fix." From the report: MIT doctoral student You Wu spent six years developing the design, building on research that earlier students began under a project sponsored by a university in Saudi Arabia, where most drinking water comes from expensive desalination plants and around a third of it is lost to leaks. It took three years before he had a working prototype. Then Wu got inspiration from an unexpected source: At a party with his partner, he accidentally stepped on her dress. She noticed immediately, unsurprisingly, and Wu realized that he could use a similar skirt-like design on a robot so that the robot could detect subtle tugs from the suction at each leak. Wu graduated from MIT in June, and is now launching the technology through a startup called WatchTower Robotics. The company will soon begin pilots in Australia and in Cambridge, Massachusetts. One challenge now, he says, is creating a guide so water companies can use the device on their own.

15 of 35 comments (clear)

  1. pig by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Congratulations, you reinvented the pig.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    1. Re:pig by pgmrdlm · · Score: 1

      I work for a gas company, that is exactly what I was thinking.

      --
      Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
    2. Re:pig by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Informative

      I used to work in the water industry and the water companies were not interested in putting stuff in the pipes. Accessing the inside of the pipe is expensive, you need to dig a huge hole and shut off the flow of water, and there are strict regulations for putting stuff in drinking water and the pipes that carry it. It's also unnecessary these days.

      To find leaks you just need to listen to the pipe at two different locations and correlate the sound of the leak. These days that can be done remotely with a sensor network (battery powered, 5 year life, my Magnum Opus). Very big leaks can require on site work with more sensitive equipment, as bigger leaks are actually quieter (less pressure).

      We had students suggest stuff periodically, but the problem was always cost or it being invasive. Water is cheap and â20/month leaks aren't worth fixing unless people are complaining.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    3. Re:pig by sysrammer · · Score: 1

      It appears that the "pig" is primarily a cleaning device. Not what TFA is about.

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
    4. Re:pig by apoc.famine · · Score: 1

      It only appears that way if you don't read the article and only look at the caption on the first image. Hint: Try the caption on the second image if reading more text is too hard.

      --
      Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
    5. Re:pig by Arzaboa · · Score: 2

      From what I can tell, the ones these guys came up with work on much smaller pipes, with bends in them, and through different valves. So while it does look like its much like a "pig", it is an improvement.

      --
      One potato, two potato, three potato, four

    6. Re:pig by sysrammer · · Score: 1

      Ach, you're right, I just skimmed the wiki and missed that one.

      Well, it looks like the badminton birdy could be quite a bit cheaper than the other devices, bringing it perhaps into consumer price ranges.

      So kudos to them for their work, and kudos to you for informing me about pigs.

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
  2. They tried that robot in Montreal... by ls671 · · Score: 1

    I hear they tried that robot in Montreal and it crashed due to memory exhaustion.

    Montreal is one of the oldest city in North America and there are so many leaks in its water system that it loses 30% of its fresh water supply.

    Makes you wonder what is the average water loss in other systems.

    https://montrealgazette.com/ne...

    https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada...
     

    --
    Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
  3. Re:Ha, 6 years to duplicate tech we already have by An+Ominous+Coward · · Score: 2

    Ridiculous, how dare you plebeians libel our foremost technology elite. It's MIT, of course what they're doing is utterly novel and deserving of fawning media coverage.

    (https://puretechltd.com/technology/purerobotics-pipeline-inspection-system/)

  4. Badminton Birdie? by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 1

    It's called a shuttlecock you blithering idiot.

    --
    I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
  5. Saudi Management by aberglas · · Score: 1

    " where most drinking water comes from expensive desalination plants and around a third of it is lost to leak"

    If that is true it is amazing. Sure, everyone has leaks. But 33%? And when you are using desal?

    Also, I wonder how this robot knows where it is. No, GPS will not work in a pipe. Maybe some sort of ping does though.

    1. Re:Saudi Management by vivian · · Score: 3, Informative

      Since maintenance crew generally know where the pipe is laid (or can find out by looking at piping plans), it is sufficient to know the linear distance from the start - this will give you an accurate enough position of the leaks to start digging. If the flow rate is know, distance can be logged using an on-board timer.(alternatively, it could be computed by relative times from entry and exit point) Once you are close, water from the leak will help you to zero in on where the actual leak is.

    2. Re:Saudi Management by pnutjam · · Score: 1

      I wonder how much of this is leaks and how much is "leaks" (skimming).

      --
      Cheap storage VM.
  6. This guy must go down in history by wiretrip · · Score: 1

    ...as being the worst person to sing Happy Birthday to...

  7. Re:Ha, 6 years to duplicate tech we already have by rjune · · Score: 3, Informative

    From FTA: "While other leak-detection technology exists, it mostly relies on acoustics to find leaks–something that can work in suburbs, but doesn’t work well in noisy city centers. Some locations use plastic pipes, which can’t use acoustic detection at all. This is true in much of the South. “This basically means that for cities in Georgia or Virginia, the way they find leaks is to just wait until the water main breaks,” he says." This invention sounds like a significant improvement of existing technology.