Technology:
NEC developed a self-advancing robot to diagnose such defects as crack and falling
inside sewerage pipes. It automatically analyzes videos it shoots with the
mounted camera and pinpoints the part likely to cause an accident like falling.
Developed by NEC in alliance with Japan Sewage Works Agency, it will be usedfor the inspection of the inner part of sewerage pipes less than 80 cm in
diameter. NEC applied the know-how it accumulated in pattern recognition for face
and fingerprint authentification to the development of this robot.
The
newly-developed robot can collect image data of a pipe line of 1 km in six
hours, while the existing method that inserts a camera inside a sewage pipe can
get image data up to 300 m in six hours. Japan has a total of 440,000 km of sewerage
pipes, more than 20% of which are rather obsolete and supposed to have a risk
of falling. The new robot will be provided to a half-year experiment toward
this autumn. After the experiment, it will be put into practical use.
A self-advancing inspection robot
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