[HN Gopher] Mini robots detect and fix water pipe leaks without ...
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Mini robots detect and fix water pipe leaks without digging
Author : Bluestein
Score : 79 points
Date : 2025-07-07 21:37 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.foxnews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.foxnews.com)
| mlok wrote:
| I browse in landscape mode on my mobile : on this website 75% of
| the screen is occupied by the top banner (25%) + sticky
| "recommended videos" banner (50%). Amazing how they managed to
| get me to quit their website so quickly.
| fancyfredbot wrote:
| The URL has put me off this website before I'd even opened it
| in a browser.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Same, no interest giving them any thing as little as a HTTP
| GET.
| x187463 wrote:
| News websites, especially local news, seem to have completely
| missed the meeting on how to build user friendly websites. They
| are almost universally full of obtrusive advertising, obtuse
| layouts, irrelevant links, and poorly handled media players.
| They are really in a league of their own for bad user
| experience.
| doublerabbit wrote:
| They know the point. They don't care.
|
| They only want money & will do so with your data.
| evrimoztamur wrote:
| Is there work going on with regards to robots in filthy
| environments, because these guys look like they're about to get
| tangled up in a hairy fatberg.
|
| 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 :)
| cinntaile wrote:
| Prevention is easier. I would suggest you stop pouring oil and
| fat into your kitchen sink.
|
| These are research prototype robots, they're obviously not
| ready for the real world yet.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Idealist perspective
| evrimoztamur wrote:
| Prevention is not the cure to the tragedy of the commons, we
| always need to be able to react. I don't pour oil down my
| drain, but the rest of the building does, which is how my
| six-meter wire won't do jack.
|
| 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.
| adrian_b wrote:
| You are right, in the filthiest environments nothing else
| can be as performant as a worm/snake-like robot, even if
| such robots are inferior to those with wheels or rotary
| propellers in nice tidy environments.
|
| 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).
| Bluestein wrote:
| This an 'em newfangled "flexible" (ie. "banana") robots
| are really interesting ...
| MangoToupe wrote:
| Given the rate I see people openly advocating for disposal of
| oil and fat down the sink as a response to rises in rent,
| good luck with prevention.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| They've had pipeline 'pigs' for quite a while that at first
| we're just solid plugs separating product but have gotten to be
| fancier and fancier. I think a drain robot would be like that.
| dardeaup wrote:
| I know that the pipeline pigs existed at least as far back as
| the early 90s (maybe even long before then).
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| Pipelines are cool. I don't have any direct references to
| give you, but you can search-engine for some interesting
| stuff. I did work for a petroleum distributor years ago and
| got to talk people w/ pipeline experience.
|
| 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".
| bob1029 wrote:
| I was observing an army of 20-25 men struggle to resolve a
| broken main the other day. They had to bring out a gigantic vac
| truck to pull the water out of the work pit fast enough to get
| back in there.
|
| If you offered them the use of your robot, you would probably
| be at risk of bodily harm.
| jstanley wrote:
| Why?
| anton-c wrote:
| I'm struggling to follow that too. Maybe because they're
| all getting paid?
| paddy_m wrote:
| The giant vac truck generally is for safe digging around
| other unknown utilities. Sometimes this is combined with a
| water jet that loosens soil, and the vac sucks up the soil
| and water.
|
| 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.
| paddy_m wrote:
| Also, fun fact about Boston (MA?) construction laws. Per
| block, a crew is only allowed two steel plates...
|
| 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.
| mythrwy wrote:
| There might be "reasons" it's like that (more hours=more
| money) and Fat Tony will not appreciate you bringing it up
| to city council.
| lumost wrote:
| I'd imagine there are multiple approaches to this e.g.
| shredding heads which break up soft material in front of the
| bot, or multi-robot configurations for snaking material.
|
| There might be an efficiency gain to be had in overall city
| plumbing by breaking up detritus which has gotten stuck in the
| pipe.
| yojo wrote:
| Leaks are more common on the pressurized side. Which is the
| clean water coming in. If you have hairy fatbergs in your
| supply you've got bigger problems.
|
| 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.
| Bluestein wrote:
| > you have hairy fatbergs in your supply you've got bigger
| problems.
|
| Shudder at the thought ...
| toast0 wrote:
| Unpressurized sewers are often pretty leaky actually. A lot
| of early sewage systems have combined sanitary and storm
| sewers, but around the 1940s, separating santiary sewers from
| runoff drains became common for new systems. Even in separate
| systems, most sewage systems see an increase in volume during
| the rainy season, and it's not because people pee more when
| it's wet outside (maybe they do, but...). Ground water leaks
| _into_ the sanitary sewers; and presumably sewage leaks out
| of the pipes into the ground at times. As long as the slopes
| are reasonable, and there is free flow, leaks aren 't a big
| deal... but leaks and gaps do allow for root intrusion which
| leads to clogs. Typically municipal sewer lines are pretty
| deep and tend to be towards the middle of the street which
| makes it harder for plants to get in there, but some plants
| are pretty persistent.
|
| 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.
|
| https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPURL.cgi?Dockey=9100WH40.txt
| amelius wrote:
| > I'm dealing with a clogged and nasty kitchen sink right now
|
| Pro tip, buy one of these: https://www.amazon.com/Einhell-
| Power-X-Change-Cordless-Clean...
| giardini wrote:
| You crazy! $220 battery and charger not included?!
|
| 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!
| amelius wrote:
| I think I bought mine for $150 including the battery and
| charger. Money well spent, if you ask me (certainly cheaper
| than hiring a plumber). Before that I had a manual version
| similar to the one you linked to, but it just didn't cut it
| in my last case of a clogged kitchen drain.
|
| 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.
| devonbleak wrote:
| You can pop the handle off that Ridgid one and there's a
| hex bit you can hook up to your existing drill. It's
| admittedly a bit wonky to operate like that, but for a
| single family home it's mostly workable.
| bell-cot wrote:
| If anyone is unfamiliar with fatbergs -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatberg
|
| 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.
| JTbane wrote:
| IMO the gov't should skip the hefty tax and force them to
| remove the "flushable" label.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Tomayto, tomahto.
|
| 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.
| anton-c wrote:
| Are any types of those wipes actually flushable?
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| generally, no. if they're wet before they get used,
| flushing them won't fix anything.
|
| toilet paper is designed to break down rapidly, even when
| compared to things like paper towels and tissues.
| josephkaz wrote:
| This looks like the next step on from the CISBOT which is in
| active service in London and New York. It can crawl through live
| mains gas pipes and plug leaks in cast iron
| joints.https://cadentgas.com/about-us/a-culture-of-
| innovation/cisbo...
| incognitojam wrote:
| https://sheffield.ac.uk/research/features/pipebots
| trebligdivad wrote:
| They do seem to have gone a bit overboard on the graphics !
| krunck wrote:
| Thanks for the non-F* News site.
| mvf4z7 wrote:
| Another company developing similar technology in the US.
| https://www.motmot.ai/
| josefresco wrote:
| More information:
|
| https://pipebots.ac.uk/
|
| https://www.instagram.com/pipebots/
|
| https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5ZVagufPw1ySKsLq8qIJvg/
| mattlondon wrote:
| It is interesting that they don't have wheels but have like
| spokes legs? I presume that is to climb up and over lips between
| pipes and the like?
|
| 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
| Palomides wrote:
| they're often called "whegs" and work well on hard but
| irregular surfaces
| goopypoop wrote:
| Best forget about that pipe, friendo.
| perdomon wrote:
| Kurt "CyberGuy" Knuttson sounds like an Interdimensional Cable
| character. I'd subscribe to his monthly newsletter.
| Bluestein wrote:
| No offense meant, vaguely reminds me of that "Shields Up" guy,
| from the Gibson (?) outfit ...
|
| ... vaguely everywhere.-
| libraryatnight wrote:
| The headline had me thinking of the Star Trek TNG Nano-bot
| episode. When do they get out and work together becoming
| sentient?!
|
| 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
| Bluestein wrote:
| There's a whole lot of innovation coming down the ... pipe (!)
| ...
|
| ... when the effort being poured into robotics starts to
| intersect with "blue collar", manual, work.-
| zubiaur wrote:
| In oil and gas they have "smart pigs", which have all sorts of
| sensors to detect issues with pipelines.
|
| These look much simpler, which is OK if the stakes are much
| lower.
| mike_hearn wrote:
| I wonder if they've validated demand with the water companies.
| Their website doesn't seem to talk about any successful
| deployments or partnerships with industry, beyond something that
| was getting started just as they were shutting down and which
| isn't robot related.
|
| 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.
| frankvdwaal wrote:
| About a decade ago I worked at a water consultancy company (of
| which Thames Water happened to be a client) to build a
| catalogue website for pipe condition assessment technologies.
| Already at the time that I was building it, there were dozens
| of these finished products with all kinds of sensors for many
| sizes of pipes, be they dry or with water still flowing inside.
| Yes, there is some demand for these devices, but there is also
| a lot of technology out there already for many use cases.
|
| All that to say: I too wonder what makes this one so special.
| prewett wrote:
| Some years ago there was a HN link about people in ancient
| Mesopotamia (all the way up to about 1100 AD, iirc) that had a
| sophisticated network of canal tunnels, and they had people that
| would hold their breath and swim down and repair them. This is a
| sort of modern version of that... Sadly, I have no idea how to
| find the link, it was interesting.
| Bluestein wrote:
| See if any of these?
|
| -
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=3&prefix=false&qu...
| presidentender wrote:
| One of my favorite... solutions, I suppose, was to find a break
| (not a leak) in a pipe by running current through it and using
| some sensor (I think the vocabulary is "signal generator," but I
| do not know). Current does not run further, there is your break;
| dig and find.
|
| 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.
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