I'm dealing with a clogged and nasty kitchen sink right now, and man, and these guys seem so happy to be in their laboratory test plumbing :)
These are research prototype robots, they're obviously not ready for the real world yet.
A laboratory environment which is devoid of any resemblance to the real world will yield you different results compared to had you designed and built first for the environments you will encounter, would you agree? And these results could have capabilities not transferrable between different environments.
I try to raise these questions in good faith: For example, are wheels the way to go at all for filthy pipe environments with many sticky and tangly hazards, or do we perhaps have to explore more snake/worm form factors? If we design for the clean environments, all the magical "cost savings for infrastructure restoration" accounting you can do will never materialize.
Moreover, instead of making a robot with arms, which are useful for work, but which are an impediment for moving in a filthy environment, it is better to send multiple vermiform robots, which are designed such as after reaching their destination they are able to cooperate in such a way as to act like a robot with multiple arms (i.e. they should be able to attach to anything in the environment or to another robot with both the anterior end and the posterior end, like leeches).
An interesting anecdote I can relate is learning abut "transmix", AKA "slop". I worked on a logistics planning app (a really, really fun mix of traveling salesman and bin packing). I saw an entry for "slop" in the pricing feed from an exchange. This caught my eye and led me to talk to one of the "pipeline guys" about what "slop" might be (spoiler - it's a mix of pipeline products that happens when the product in the pipeline is changed) and why one might want to buy "slop".
If you offered them the use of your robot, you would probably be at risk of bodily harm.
If they wanted to just drain an excavation, they would use a regular trash pump (capable of handling solids/sand) and run the discharge hose to a nearby stormdrain.
In the past year, the gas line and water main on my street has been replaced. Which has resulted in 6 excavations of the street at excruciatingly slow and loud pace with the vac truck. They excavate once to transfer each finger connection (to the houses) and attach the feeder to a temporary pipe, refilling their progress each day. Once a segment (about a city block or two) been transferred to the temporary line, they excavate again to remove the old line, refilling each day. Finally they lay the new line and connect the finger lines to it.
If you can only cover two steel plates worth of trench overnight, there isn't a chance for the gas team to coordinate with the water team.
With better laws this would have taken a 1/3rd of the excavation, possibly a 1/6th of the excavation. Since excavation and refilling were most of the work in any day, this should also have led to the same cost decrease.
I don't know the exact law or regulation, but I have heard about it from multiple sources, and do intend to being it up with city council.
There might be an efficiency gain to be had in overall city plumbing by breaking up detritus which has gotten stuck in the pipe.
The article describes them being “dropped in at hydrants.” So I think they’re punting on the “hairier” problem of the sewer side.
Edit: okay, I kept reading and they do mention pressurized waste lines. That does seem harder, especially since you’re going to get root intrusion on old public lines.
Shudder at the thought ...
Here's an EPA manual from 1971, Prevention and Correction of Excessive Infiltration and Inflow into Sewer Systems. The key thing here is that the goal isn't to eliminate infiltration, but to eliminate excessive infiltration; it's all tradeoffs.
Pro tip, buy one of these: https://www.amazon.com/Einhell-Power-X-Change-Cordless-Clean...
I'm more a $44 guy: https://www.amazon.com/RIDGID-57043-Drain-Cleaner-Power/dp/B...
It still works during a flood or power outage!
The nice thing about the automatic version is that you can go in/out and clockwise/counterclockwise independently and with a simple switch, which makes it easy to route through complicated pipe geometries without getting stuck, and you don't even have to apply much force because the machine does that for you.
That I've heard, the best way to minimize fatbergs would be to put a hefty tax on "flushable" wipes. Unfortunately, the companies which manufacture them all know that breaking consumers' fell-good delusions (that the wipes are guilt-free flushable) would tank their sales. And politicians are always happy to let lobby-savvy corporations externalize their costs onto the public purse.
The important thing would be to block them from replacing "flushable" with something similarly deceiving. Ideally, they'd have to replace it with a big, scary warning label - about how flushing those wipes could stick you with a flood of backed-up sewage and/or a 5-figure plumbing or septic system repair bill.
toilet paper is designed to break down rapidly, even when compared to things like paper towels and tissues.
I have a mystery pipe in my house that no one knows where it goes, and they refuse to put a CCTV camera down it beyond a certain distance due to leaving the property. Tempting to DIY something like this... But I have a U-bend in the gulley to contend with first
... vaguely everywhere.-
Sincerely though, it's nice to see this - lately I feel like all I read about is AI doing the things we'd rather be doing, glad people are still working on robots to do what we'd rather not :D
... when the effort being poured into robotics starts to intersect with "blue collar", manual, work.-
These look much simpler, which is OK if the stakes are much lower.
Thames Water already uses pretty hi-tech approaches to finding leaks including using underground microphones to find them via sound (with obligatory AI, of course), and then they have been trialling a chemical that can travel through the pipes and jam the leaks.
https://www.thameswater.co.uk/always-fixing/finding-leaks-wi...
https://www.aquatechtrade.com/news/urban-water/thames-water-...
https://en.gutermann-water.com/2019/09/23/thames-water-finds...
They also know all about pigs, of course. So I wonder what the researchers felt their edge was that would let their approach do better than others. It seems from a quick check like the water companies are still primarily interested in hydrophonics and how to adapt those to plastic pipes.
All that to say: I too wonder what makes this one so special.
- https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=3&prefix=false&qu...
When the pipe is PVC, though, current does not run through it - so what do we do? Why, pump an electrolyte solution, and run your current through that!
It's simple, but it's not done, and so the plumber friend who told me of the original solution patented it, tried to sell it, and found that potential buyers were almost offended at how easy it was. As soon as he'd describe it to people they'd almost think they came up with it themselves. So it is a valuable idea, but it is also utterly worthless.
mlok•12h ago
fancyfredbot•11h ago
barbazoo•10h ago
x187463•11h ago
doublerabbit•11h ago
They only want money & will do so with your data.