Bottle-brush robot
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Date posted: 06/08/2008
Posted by: Site Administration
This story is from the category
 Artificial Intelligence

A robot with bristles like a bottle brush could make it possible to inspect water, sewer and gas pipelines that are unreachable using current technology.

So far the bristled robots have already inspected sewage and gas pipelines, and explored pipes in a nuclear plant, that could otherwise not have been inspected without being taken apart, say the researchers who invented the robot.

Zhelong Wang and Hong Gu of Dalian University of Technology in Dalian, China, created the robot. Their creation moves under its own power, and, just like a bottle brush, the bristles bend backwards to fit into any space. The advantage is that the bristles can conform to changes in shape in the pipe, including narrow section or partly blocked pipes, and provide a way to propel the robot along.

The body design can be in two or three sections, with a pneumatic cylinder connecting each pair.

When the cylinder tries to push the body pieces apart, the rear chunk cannot move because of resistance from the backward-facing bristles, so the other body is pushed forward. When the cylinder pulls together, the front brush digs in and the rear brush is pulled forward.

See the full Story via external site: technology.newscientist.com