[HN Gopher] The return of pneumatic tubes
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The return of pneumatic tubes
Author : pseudolus
Score : 59 points
Date : 2024-06-19 16:30 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.technologyreview.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.technologyreview.com)
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| I'd love to see an advanced citywide or intra-city logistics
| system using pneumatic tubes or evacuated tubes in general.
|
| There's interesting non-pneumatic work from the Swiss company
| Cargo Sous Terrain, with self-poweres robot carriers shuttling
| materials around a city. Haven't heard or seen much in specifics,
| but their design material looks flashy & cool, and they
| supposedly are doing a tunnel. https://spectrum.ieee.org/cargo-
| sous-terrain
|
| Outside of Atlanta GA, there's Pipedream, which launched a
| modest-sized intra-city auto omous robot delivery system at the
| end of 2023, which is cool.
| https://interestingengineering.com/transportation/worlds-fir...
|
| It probably isn't worth the trouble nor a real efficiency gain
| but the idea of evacuated tubes with low air resistance or maybe
| even using real pneumatic pressure _sounds_ cool. Especially for
| longer distances, higher capacities, the idea of some kind of
| hyperloop like system but a bit smaller & not human rated would
| be neat, could eliminate a colossal amount of CO2 & effort.
| Animats wrote:
| > Cargo Sous Terrain
|
| They've been "studying" and issuing PR since 2013, but so far,
| zero deployment. They are doing worse than The Boring Company.
| ianburrell wrote:
| I wonder if anyone has done small electric cars on rail(s) in
| small tunnel like foot to meter diameter. It could do larger
| tunnel, would be easier to route, and doesn't have to be kept
| at pressure. My guess is that it is more efficient the
| pneumatic tubes and easier to deploy. Could probably even use
| the same containers as above-ground robots or aerial drones.
| bee_rider wrote:
| You could fit a lot of data in a pneumatic tube capsule full of
| SSDs, haha. It might give the old hatchback a run for its money.
| metabagel wrote:
| Still doesn't beat the transfer speed of a jumbo jet full of
| data tapes.
| mikewarot wrote:
| How about the Emma Marsk loaded with SSD drives?
| lostlogin wrote:
| As long as the driver doesn't jam it in the Suez, Ever
| Given style.
| Arrath wrote:
| Careful, or the networking protocol might jam ever
| smaller boats in behind it.
| robocat wrote:
| The 747-8F Freighter has PAYLOAD 140000 kg / 308647 lbs with
| CRUISE SPEED 901 kph / 559 mph with HOLD SIZE 5430x486x304 cm
| / 2137x191x119 in
|
| A 12TB (uncompressed) Q2078A LTO-8 tape weighs 285.8g Depth:
| 111mm Height: 45.7mm Width: 113mm
|
| An SSD has better data density. For example Samsung 990 Pro
| 4TB M.2 NVMe SSD: DIMENSION (WxHxD) 80 x 22 x 2.3 mm with
| WEIGHT Max 9.0g Weight
|
| Highest density would be raw NAND flash chips: ICs would be
| ideal.
|
| Maybe 12 inch wafers would be feasible but likely lower data
| density because flash chips are densely stacked within an IC.
| m463 wrote:
| What if you filled the tube with fiber?
| crtasm wrote:
| Then you'd need twice as many SSDs!
| BenFranklin100 wrote:
| One would think the advent of modern, semi-autonomous robots
| could fulfill much of the function of pneumatic tubes for
| transporting small packages across a facility.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| That sounds both less efficient and possibly actively dangerous
| in any reasonably large facility. It will certainly be slower
| than tube delivery.
| BenFranklin100 wrote:
| High upfront capital costs for tube infrastructure and
| relative inflexibility once set up might dominate the
| decision.
| Detrytus wrote:
| Robots aren't cheap either. And the safety concerns, or
| maybe even the nuisance of having those robots roaming the
| hallways, adding to the traffic might trump everything
| else.
| BenFranklin100 wrote:
| A tube system is cheaper than I thought, about $300-500K
| for a big hospital system:
|
| https://www.aerocom.co.uk/blog/how-much-does-a-pneumatic-
| tub...
|
| I don't know if this takes into consideration facilities
| remodeling.
| gagagaga7 wrote:
| When you're transporting a patient from cardiac theatre to ICU
| down a long corridor which allows space for a bed and
| additional equipment (pumps, cardiac assist devices, nitric
| oxide dispensers) and not much else, it is super annoying
| (maybe dangerous) to have to negotiate a pass with a robot. I
| guess you can prewarn the hospital to clear the path, but
| pneumatic tubes work well and once installed seem very low cost
| to use/maintain.
| BenFranklin100 wrote:
| I was mainly thinking of use cases outside hospitals. We need
| to transport items within our facility, and a robot operating
| at night or. In less trafficked areas seemed a better
| solution. I can see the value of pneumatics in a real-time,
| busy hospital setting.
| alexwasserman wrote:
| In NYC Rsosevelt Island solved their trash problems (which plague
| the rest of the city) with an underground pneumatic trash
| network: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/suck-it-roosevelt-
| isla...
|
| Buildings have a connection into which trash is sucked away to
| the central yard for processing. It's pretty neat and helps keep
| the island tidy. You don't get any of the normal huge trash piles
| that litter Manhattan on trash day.
|
| Conversely, our local hospital is now using robots for
| deliveries. They trundle around and deliver things like meds to
| the nurses stations on request, and announce it with "Your
| delivery has arrived".
|
| Just watching robots trundle around as though it's normal is an
| interesting slow creep towards what seemed so futuristic in Star
| Wars in the 70s and 80s. Now our local supermarkets (BJs and Stop
| and Shop) have robots that trundle around checking inventory as
| well.
| fusslo wrote:
| my office adjoins a factory where we produce what we engineer
| in the offices.
|
| The factory has two or maybe three different types of robots
| delivering all sorts of things from packages to packaging to
| stainless steel bar.
|
| the robots use the same walkways as the humans.
|
| It seems more and more we are designing robots to occupy and
| utilize the same spaces as humans. And we're designing the
| robots to make the humans give way: they're slow, large, bulky,
| and just stop when confronted. I think it's because humans are
| a much better robot.
|
| humans (generally, of course) are more agile, can route easily,
| and move our bodies in unexpected ways to accomplish the task
| (lift a box up from waist height over an obstacle for example)
|
| though I do get a LITTLE annoyed every time I have to walk
| around the stupid floor mopping robot in my local stop & shop
| alexwasserman wrote:
| > the robots use the same walkways as the humans.
|
| How much of this is that the robots are far newer than the
| buildings? How soon till new buildings are designed with
| designated robotic paths?
|
| Plenty of buildings are designed with hidden back-of-the-
| building areas and access routes for maintenance humans. I
| assume pretty soon they'll have the same for robots too. Then
| we'll really hit the Star Trek "time to climb through a duct
| to save the day/stuck robot" type situations.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| It will be much cheaper, and not _that_ hard to make the
| robots super safe and considerate.
| ssrc wrote:
| And then we send them to Jupiter.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_Unintentional
| wongarsu wrote:
| We do that all the time, we just don't usually consider
| them to be robots. Car factories have all kinds of vehicles
| transporting car parts along tracks, ceiling mounted rails,
| etc. Nobody bats an eye about that. If you squint hard
| enough elevators are a kind of robot on a designated
| pathway.
|
| But to be called a robot it has to have some human-like (or
| at least animal-like) quality. Which usually involves
| either imitating human arms (e.g. typical industrial robot
| arms), imitating human movement (e.g. Boston dynamics) or
| using infrastructure designed for humans. If you put a
| delivery robot on a purpose-built path it has none of those
| qualities and reverts back to being a normal machine.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> I do get a LITTLE annoyed every time I have to walk around
| the stupid floor mopping robot
|
| I ran into one of these things late one night after checking
| into a hotel. Dead tired, I got off the elevator and was
| walking down the hall when this 3-foot high dalek started
| following me. "Can I get you some towels?" I retreated into
| my room. The next morning I almost tripped over it. It had
| spent the night outside my door... stalking me.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| TIL a new (to me) word. No wonder I did poorly on the GRE
| language section.
|
| trun*dled, trun*dling. to cause (a circular object) to roll
| along; roll. to convey or move in a wagon, cart, or other
| wheeled vehicle; wheel: The farmer trundled his produce to
| market in a rickety wagon. Archaic. to cause to rotate; twirl;
| spin.
| fuzztester wrote:
| >roll
|
| >wheel
|
| >rotate
|
| Trundle sounds vaguely treadmill, which also has something to
| do with rotation :)
|
| Wonder if the two words are etymologically related.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| The word made sense, I was just surprised there was a
| special word for rolling robot movement, hopefully it gets
| more use in the future as robots become more common.
| fuzztester wrote:
| Yes, I did know that the word trundle made sense, because
| I have come across it before in books, as a kid, in
| stories for children. E.g. "The gardener trundled his
| wheelbarrow along the (garden) path."
|
| (The word is not use much nowadays; archaic, as the
| dictionary entry says.)
|
| I was only speculating about the connection between the
| two words (trundle and treadmill), because they sound
| vaguely similar. Maybe they have a common Latin or Old
| English or Old German root, as many English words do.
|
| Update: I checked, and it seems I may have been partly /
| loosely correct about the etymological connection:
|
| https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/trundle
|
| Etymology
|
| Noun and Verb
|
| from trundle small _wheel_ , alteration of earlier
| trendle, from Middle English, circle, ring, wheel, from
| Old English trendel; akin to Old English trendan to
| revolve
|
| https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/treadmill
|
| c : a mill worked by persons treading on steps on the
| periphery of a wide _wheel_ having a horizontal axis
|
| https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tread
|
| tread 2 of 2 noun 1 a(1) : the part of a _wheel_ or tire
| that makes contact with a road or rail
|
| Italics mine.
| vitus wrote:
| This sounds more like convergent evolution rather than a
| shared root.
|
| Tread derives from Middle English _treden_ ; the
| difference here is to step vs to roll. The latter
| definition you cite is a newer usage (from the 20th
| century) which is more directly analogous to the tread on
| the bottom of one's shoe.
|
| The use of a wheel in a treadmill seems more like an
| implementation detail; the obvious tie-in (IMO) is
| "persons treading on steps".
| fuzztester wrote:
| >vaguely treadmill
|
| I meant to write:
|
| vaguely _like_ treadmill
|
| "Type in haste, correct at leisure" - Me.
|
| Like the quote: "Marry in haste, repent at leisure".
|
| :)
| floydnoel wrote:
| never heard that quote before, thanks for sharing!
| robocat wrote:
| > Marry in haste, repent at leisure
|
| "regret" at leisure would make more sense, because
| "repent" doesn't really have the right meaning (is more
| about wrongdoing/sin).
|
| https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/married-in-haste.html
|
| Phrases are sometimes literally meaningless.
| Qworg wrote:
| To add, it is more "to move heavily" - it has a negative
| correlation to agility and speed.
|
| Cars don't trundle, overloaded trucks do.
| adolph wrote:
| And beds!
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| I don't understand why they don't enforce dumpsters like any
| other big city. Then again if there is perpetual incompetence
| in nyc, it probably means corrupted parties and individuals
| benefit from the situation somehow.
| mattficke wrote:
| They're starting to roll out trash containers in the city,
| should have been done years ago. There's a bunch of
| interconnected factors: all residential buildings in NYC get
| municipal trash pickup (most other cities require private
| trash service for large apartment buildings), Manhattan
| doesn't have many alleys so trash has to go out front, on-
| street parking blocks larger curbside bins and using
| exclusively wheeled cans would crowd the sidewalks. They
| finally decided to remove some parking spaces to allow for
| large curbside bins.
| oblio wrote:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/p1oh
| d...
| nsayoda wrote:
| Lack of space. A trash pile that is gone in 24 to 48 hours
| isn't permanent - whereas a dumpster is. Not to mention,
| access to that dumpster by a truck would be difficult.
|
| Hypothetical, but when you have a single block of 10
| buildings, each housing 500 people - the trash generated is a
| lot and if each were to have their own dumpster parked
| outside, where would cars or delivery trucks park? If parking
| is allowed between the dumpsters, how would the trucks access
| those dumpsters? There's no room to park them off-street
| because the buildings typically abut next to each other
| without alleys in between.
|
| That's without even mentioning that even if multiple
| buildings share a dumpster - then you run into the question
| of how do you deal with illegal dumping? How do you bill each
| building for trash removal? See: "The Absurd Problem of New
| York City Trash" by NY Times
| (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/03/02/upshot/nyc-
| tr...)
|
| No paywall version: https://archive.ph/XFAFg
|
| Discussion on that article: https://www.reddit.com/r/urbanpla
| nning/comments/1b5i1xk/the_...
|
| A study: https://manhattan.institute/article/innovative-
| waste-managem...
|
| What I'm trying to get at is that the trash problem in NYC,
| and any proposed solution, raises a lot more questions than
| anything else.
|
| I for one, would love to see Amsterdam inspired under-
| sidewalk bins
| (https://www.core77.com/posts/102208/Amsterdams-Smart-
| System-...)
| pyuser583 wrote:
| Isn't it because they don't have alleys?
| pyuser583 wrote:
| They "trundle?" That's a cool word.
| racl101 wrote:
| I too like learning new words. Seems like a synonym for
| 'lumbering' minus the awkward part.
| ortusdux wrote:
| I've been interested in Laundry Jet, which is a pneumatic laundry
| chute. The obvious concern is issues with blockages.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6xJ4K7WSQw
| KerrAvon wrote:
| This is really cool and I'd actually love to have it.
|
| The main issue with it -- aside from the limited market; how
| many houses are big enough to justify the cost, and how many of
| those are new construction or to-the-studs remodeled in any
| given year? -- will be reliability over time. Central vac
| systems eventually fail and generally homeowners find it
| simpler to buy a normal vacuum than to fix the system.
|
| Now this seems like a job for semi-autonomous robots.
| metabagel wrote:
| My family had a house with a central vacuum system in the
| late 70s. The vacuum was located in the garage, and it
| detected the loss of suction and turned on when you opened
| the wall flap to insert the hose. But, yeah, I've always
| wondered what you do when the seals fail or the vacuum stops
| working. Our house also had intercoms.
| jonathanlydall wrote:
| My parents still live in the house I grew up in which has a
| central vacuum cleaner.
|
| Theirs is a "Beam" system.
|
| Each outlet has a copper pair of wires running to it,
| connected to two contact pins on the inside of the outlet,
| and the vacuum hose has a metal ring on it so that as it's
| inserted, it completes an electrical circuit between the
| two contact pins, signalling the vacuum cleaner turn on,
| once the circuit is broken, it would turn off.
|
| Perhaps the system you had actually worked like this.
| ortusdux wrote:
| The contacts can also deliver 12v power which can be used
| to run powered brush heads.
| biomcgary wrote:
| Brings back great memories of a house I lived in as a
| little kid. It had a central vacuum system, which inspired
| my father's comedic "horror" stories about Ze Vacuum Hoze.
| constantcrying wrote:
| The house I grew up in had quite a large central pillar with a
| hole in it. The purpose was that dirty laundry from the rooms
| for the adults/children, which we're on the first floor, could
| be transported to the cellar where the washing machine was.
|
| I still remember when as a child a "situation" arose and I
| managed to block it with my clothes and my parents had to clear
| the blockage.
| Animats wrote:
| There are big versions of that for hospitals and hotels. It
| seems overkill for a house.
|
| Around 2018, there were companies selling home-sized laundry
| folding machines for rather high prices. Those seem to have
| disappeared.
| ortusdux wrote:
| There can be code/insurance issues with laundry chutes as
| some view them as fire hazards, so I think these pneumatic
| systems are a compliant alternative.
| smusamashah wrote:
| I found some videos on youtube of hospital pneumatic systems. Not
| sure they are the ones this article is talking about. Also
| haven't found any detailed video about these modern systems.
| pseudolus wrote:
| "Untapped New York" featured an interesting article about the
| pneumatic tube mail system that was used in NYC:
|
| https://untappedcities.com/2023/10/17/pneumatic-tube-mail-ne...
|
| A lot of the material was also incorporated in their podcast
| about the same subject:
|
| https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pneumatic-tube-mail-in...
| cypherpunks01 wrote:
| Yes, the NYC pneumatic tube mail is fascinating!
|
| These tubes were _large_ , 24"L x 8" diameter. You could fit
| all sorts of stuff in there. It's so interesting to think that
| food, mail, and small package delivery in NYC could have peaked
| way back when pneumatic tubes were used (of course only in the
| optimal case with start/end near one of the 23 tube stations).
| Also really cool that there was a tube that ran over the
| Brooklyn bridge for sending mail or burritos between boroughs.
|
| For further reading on unique NYC infrastructure, the New York
| City steam system is also very interesting and still in
| operation.
| weinzierl wrote:
| I grew up near Germany's biggest electronics retailers[1] head
| quarters and they had these tubes ending in their consumer store.
|
| When I was building something and needed a certain component I
| could just ride my bicycle a few kilometers over the country, say
| what I needed and a couple of minutes later it would pop out of a
| tube behind the counter.
|
| I am not very nostalgic, but I miss this immediacy and hope to
| live long enough to see drone delivery become ubiquitous.
|
| [1] Think RadioShack, but not RadioShack. They claimed to be
| Europe's biggest, but I have no idea if this was ever true.
| conductr wrote:
| I feel like a lot of retail should function similar to this
| way. Stores with shelves of homogenous "stock" is basically
| asking your customers to navigate a big warehouse while
| carrying around all their intended purchases; then go stand in
| a line to pay for those items. They could often easily function
| as big vending machines. Some stores could be reduced to a few
| shelves/aisles of 1-sample-per-SKU, where you just scan the
| barcode from your phone and all your items get sent to you.
| Preferably not one at a time and not right to the customer, I'd
| make it where the customer just goes and collects their
| bagged/carted items when done scanning. The payment could occur
| at the same time.
|
| Using a grocery store as an example. I'm not a fan of shopping
| on my phone for some things like groceries. I like to look at
| the boxes and visually scan the shelves and see things I might
| not think to search for on my phone. This would allow for it
| but remove the need to walk up and down 30 aisles. I would
| still want to pick my produce/meat so this would require a
| slightly different approach, but the dry goods and other stuff
| that's typically in center of the store could work.
| m463 wrote:
| I think the last pneumantic tube I saw was decades ago, when
| banks had drive-throughs.
|
| The lane closest to the bank had a teller, but the other lanes
| all used pneumantic tubes to send paperwork and money back and
| forth.
|
| That said, I wonder if pneumatic tubes have been going the way of
| railroads - extremely useful for their "right-of-ways" to run
| fiber.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Banks still have drive-throughs, my dude. I've literally never
| seen a bank without one. And a lot of those still have
| pneumatic tubes.
| ssl-3 wrote:
| It depends, I think.
|
| From my midwestern US perspective, banks downtown tend not to
| have drive-throughs, and banks that are in lower-density
| areas _always_ have drive-throughs.
|
| But then, my perception is clouded by my own bias, wherein:
| I've spent most of my life in areas with zero public
| transportation and that generally despise pedestrians.
|
| In areas where people tend to walk, bike, or use public
| transit instead of owning and driving a car, I can imagine
| that building a drive-through for a bank has very little
| utility to the bank or the bank's customers.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| In Ballard Bank of America has an old drive thru with tubes
| still in place. But has replaced it all with ATMs that you
| can use with cars.
| majormajor wrote:
| This is a very population-density-driven thing. Like
| Starbucks and being standalone buildings with drivethrus vs
| just being in strip malls. In cities like LA with significant
| sections of density but also a ton of surrounding burbs
| you'll see both; in newer burb-only areas, you almost always
| have the drive-thru.
| jiveturkey wrote:
| I sooooo want this in my house. As well as a solari board.
| cypherpunks01 wrote:
| It is stupidly expensive, but the vestaboard is pretty dang
| cool for home or small business use, if 132 characters will
| suffice. No affiliation, I just like em
| frompdx wrote:
| I think the price is right for a small business that is
| trying to catch someone's eye. Very unique and more subtle
| than a LCD display. I could see it in a coffee shop or a tap-
| room.
|
| I would love a smaller version for my home office. Not sure
| what I would use it for. Maybe some app monitoring info.
| lostlogin wrote:
| As radiography students we messed around with these. Sending
| stupid notes or a sub.
|
| It's a top notch sandwich delivery system.
|
| Not the same but in a similar vein, I was in a big library once
| and it was having work done. Inside the ceiling were masses of
| conveyer belts shipping books to various floors and departments.
| bloopernova wrote:
| I always wanted a hugely impractical 1 metre wide tube for
| pizza delivery.
|
| Now I wonder if an electromagnetic carriage system in such a
| tube would work, and if so just how expensive would it be?
|
| Thinking about packet switching in 1 metre tubes is fun too.
| Almost like designing belts in Factorio. Every house would need
| an end point, and would you use star network topology?
|
| Beyond pizza, Amazon type deliveries via tube would be great.
| "Delivered within an hour!"
| fracus wrote:
| I believe they still use them in Costcos to move money around.
| simonw wrote:
| No online discussion of pneumatic tubes is complete without a
| mention of the Alameda-Weehawken Burrito Tunnel:
| https://idlewords.com/2007/04/the_alameda_weehawken_burrito_...
| simonw wrote:
| Stanford Hospital has a pneumatic tube system which earned a
| listing on Atlas Obscura:
| https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/pneumatic-tubes-at-stanf...
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Costco uses these to transport cash to the main security safe,
| Costco doesn't get robbed
| fudged71 wrote:
| Check out the startup Pipedream.
|
| It sounds to me like building logistics pipelines between
| hospitals (even partnering with the healthcare pneumatic
| logistics companies to do this) would be an ideal way to get
| started. Then expand the network from there with QoS packet
| prioritization schemes. Similar to how large Fiber Optic networks
| are done in some regions, or how arpanet started.
| conductr wrote:
| I used to work in a hospital lab, it's a lot of biohazard stuff
| being moved around so probably best it stays a closed network.
| The pipedream idea is great. However I don't get why they focus
| on food/grocery delivery. I'd want them to replace a majority
| of delivery trucks of the Fedex/UPS/Amazon variety if I was
| going to allow them to tunnel a citywide network. Quantifying
| the reduced wear and tear on city roads may even make it an
| easier sell to local governments.
| nacho-daddy wrote:
| The return? more like "The only modern use case for pneumatic
| tubes is Hospitals."
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