MIT Has Developed a Robot that Can Find the Leak in Any Pipe System

PipeGuard is a robotics system capable of finding any leak in a pipe matrix by using pressure sensors and onbaord locating equipment. The technology could prevent the severe monetary, structural, and environmental problems caused by pipe leaks of all kinds.

An MIT research team called PipeGuard has developed a robot capable of finding the smallest leaks in pipes regardless of what they are made of. It can be inserted into the water supply through any fire hydrant, and comes in two models: one which passively floats along a pipe, and another that can be controlled.

The system — which has been in development for 12 years — uses a small robotic device in the shape of a shuttlecock that gathers data on divergent pressures using sensitive detectors on its rubber skirt. Simultaneously, it monitors its position. When the ‘bot is removed from the pipe using a net, the two sets of data it uploads are crosschecked to find leaks.

The robot completed field tests on the devilishly tricky trial pipe at the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Saudi Arabia, during which it found an artificial leak 100 percent of the time. Now it is being deployed in Monterrey, Mexico, in order to help the city combat the $80 million cost of 40 percent of its water supply going to waste.

Source: http://www.mit100k.org/blog/2017/5/9/pipeguard