Joey – the pipes damage and leaks inspector

Joey can find its own way independently through networks of narrow pipes underground, to inspect any damage or leaks. It is cheap and will help reduce a lot of costing as well as resources by detecting the exact location of the damage or leak.

Joey is the first micro-robot developed by a research team led by Professor Cohen, in collaboration with Professor Richardson as a part of the Pipebots project of the universities of Sheffield, Bristol, Birmingham, and Leeds, in collaboration with UK utility companies and other international academic and industrial partners.

Robot Name: Joey

Company / Institute: Pipebots

Location: United Kingdom

Inception: 2024 (Under development)

Sensors: Low resolution encoders, Laser based Range sensors, IMU

Skills: Autonomous movement, traverse obstacles, self battery saving

Industry: Pipeline maintenance, utility inspection

Programming Languages: Not specified

Commercial availability: Currently under development, not available commercially.

Joey is the first micro-robot developed by Pipebots, that can work independently in underground pipes to inspect damages or leaks. The organization is expecting future versions of Joey to work in swarms, and possibly even be able to repair the pipelines.

This 70 grams, micro-robot can autonomously navigate through interconnected pipes as narrow as 7.5 cm in diameter. Instead of wheels or legs, it has a combination of both i.e. wheel-legs. It’s range sensors helps it gauge the distance without the need to turn the camera on, therefore improving it’s battery life. Once it detects the problem in the pipes, it will power up the light, camera & mic and relay the information wirelessly to an engineer.

It’s average coverage speed is 1 meter in 45 seconds and during the lab tests, it was able to move through different type of surfaces. One of it’s greatest features is that it will return to a home base that is equipped with a charging station, when its battery gets low.

Featured image credits : TL Nguyen, A Blight, A Pickering, A Barber, GH Jackson-Mills, JH Boyle, R Richardson, M Dogar, N Cohen. Original research papers here.

“The information in this blog is sourced from publicly available resources online.”

Features:

Programming Language (s):

Although the specific programming languages used for Joey are not disclosed, robotics systems like Joey typically rely on Python and C++ for navigation algorithms, sensor data processing, and real-time communication. These languages help optimize Joey’s performance and adaptability in complex pipeline scenarios.

Current use:

While it is currently under experimentation and developmental mode, it is expected to be useful in pipeline inspection and maintenance, minimize disruption and cost, utility networks, environmental monitoring, and much more.

Specifications :