The development of innovative robots and AI solutions will make it possible to automatically record sewer pipe conditions, robotically install sensors in sewers, and detect and remove blockages with the help of robots. The ambitious project PIPEON has kicked-off with the aim to develop new robotic and AI-based technologies for mapping, monitoring, and maintaining Europe’s sewer networks using autonomous “thinking” robots and AI-based modelling and analysis tools. PIPEON stands for Robotics and AI for Sewer Pipe Inspection and Maintenance and it is a 4 year, €8M, multi-partner, research and development project, funded by the European Union and led by Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech).
The project leader, Professor Maarja Kruusmaa at TalTech, explained that although repair and cleaning are very practical problems, working in sewer environments means that their solution first requires the achievement of fundamentally new research results. “Robots are mostly used to perform dirty, tedious and dangerous work and are sent to hard-to-reach places instead of people”, says Kruusmaa, adding: “but few people have remembered that one of the most complex, dangerous and hard-to-reach environments in the world is right here under our feet when we walk home from work every day”. Working in sewers presents a myriad of technological challenges. “There are currently no robots that can work without direct human intervention and last for a long time in such a featureless, harsh environments.”
The project received funding from the highly competitive European Framework Programme on Robotics and Artificial Intelligence. The team, led by TalTech, is multi-disciplinary and has 12 partners, including the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, the University of Sheffield, and several European innovative technology companies, such as an Italian start-up Herobots who are developing novel actuation mechanisms, and also several water utilities. Simon Tait, Professor of Water Engineering at the University of Sheffield explained that “with over 3M km of sewer in Europe, subject to climate change, new environmental obligations and an aging work force, water utilities need radically new approaches to maintaining their service to citizens’ – we believe that autonomous in-sewer robots is an approach that can help meet these challenges”.
Our ambition is that by the end of the project we will have evaluated robot prototypes in several European sewer networks, opening the potential for widespread deployment of robots in sewers in the 2030’s.
The kick-off meeting of the project took place on 22 and 23 of January at the University of Sheffield, bringing together all PIPEON partners. To stay tuned with the project’s developments, please follow the project’s LinkedIn page.
