Pipebots are equipped with sensors and are so small that they can monitor water pipes without blocking them
According to Ofwat, the water industry's economic watchdog, around three billion liters of water are lost every day in England and Wales through leaks in hundreds of thousands of kilometers of water pipes.
Engineers have now developed miniature robots to patrol the pipe network, check for errors and prevent leaks.
They say maintaining the network is “impossible” without robotics.
Water industry association Water UK told BBC News that companies had already invested “billions” in leaks.
Victoria Gill
Companies already use connected inspection robots like the one shown on the right
However, a recent Ofwat report highlighted a lack of investment by water companies. Several were named that were said to be “letting customers and the environment down” by not spending enough on improvements. Water UK responded that the leakage had reached “the lowest level since privatisation”.
Leaks are a widespread and complicated problem: across the UK, hundreds of thousands of kilometers of pipes – of varying ages and conditions – supply water to millions of properties.
Colin Day, from Essex and Suffolk Water, said: “In [this region] We care for more than 8,500 km (5,282 miles) of pipes alone and only about half of the leaks in those pipes are visible, meaning it's difficult to determine exactly where [the rest] Are.”
Water waste has been a particularly sensitive issue this year. According to Water UK, three companies – South East Water, South West Water and Yorkshire Water – still have local hosepipe bans in place following the summer drought. And amid the cost of living crisis, Ofwat estimates that 20% of customers in England and Wales are struggling to pay their water bills.
However, companies have reduced leakage by around 6% on average over the last year, according to Ofwat.
The industry is committed to the government's goal of halving water losses by 2050. Water UK accepted that progress needed to be “accelerated”. “We are using the latest technology, including specialist in-pipe cameras, satellite imaging, thermal drone technology, high-tech probes and artificial intelligence,” it told BBC News.
Flows beneath our feet
- There are approximately 217,000 miles of water mains in England and Wales and more than 300,000 miles across the UK.
- The network is made from a mix of materials including plastic, cast iron and steel.
- According to the Energy Saving Trust, the average British household uses almost 350 liters of water every day.
We visited the site of a leak repair at Essex and Suffolk Water, part of Northumbria Water. At a suburban site, a team conducted careful excavation and navigated the overhead sewer pipes, gas service and electrical cables to locate an underground leak.
“This wasn’t visible – we discovered it by monitoring flow on our network,” said Colin Day from Essex and Suffolk Water.
“We covered the biggest leaks – burst pipes that people see. It’s these smaller, hidden leaks that we need to find.”
Essex and Suffolk Water is testing “no-digging” repairs, including sealants that can be safely injected into pipes to repair cracks before they develop into a major leak. According to some scientists, miniature robots will be the technological revolution in leak prevention.
Robotic pipe patrols
Transparent water pipes at the Infrastructure Research Center in Sheffield
Some companies are already using tethered robots to inspect inaccessible pipes. But most of the network is currently inaccessible without research. This is where much smaller, artificially intelligent machines come into play.
A new generation of underground pipe patrol robots is being tested at the University of Sheffield's Integrated Civil and Infrastructure Research Center (ICAIR).
Pipebots are miniature mobile robots with cameras for their eyes and all-terrain legs. They are developed in collaboration with the water industry to monitor pipes and find cracks and weak points before they become leaks.
“Companies are currently only reacting to disruptions, not proactively,” explains Prof. Kirill Horoshenkov. “We need the presence of robots so that they can continuously collect data before disruptions occur.”
Holding the robot the size of a toy car, Prof. Horoshenkov explained: “They move along the pipe, take photos and have a microphone to listen to the pipe. They are supposed to make decisions about whether the pipe is likely to develop into a failure or not.”
Researchers are testing robots on different surfaces to mimic the inside of a pipe
Artificial intelligence expert Prof Netta Cohen from the University of Leeds says the biggest challenge for Pipebots is communication.
“There is no GPS underground. That’s why they communicate with each other over short distances (via sound or Wi-Fi).”
She and her colleagues are developing a system in which a larger “mother” robot carries and deploys a group of miniature robots.
“They will put these little guys down to put them in the smaller pipes and collect them when they are finished,” Prof. Cohen explained. “We’re going to need a whole society of these robots to work in all these miles of pipe.”
“When you think about the state of our infrastructure,” she added, “there is so much urgency to do something. This has implications not only for the industry, but also for our impact on the environment.”
The water pipes beneath our feet, said Prof. Cohen, are among the most inhospitable environments on Earth. “It doesn’t work without robotics.”
At ICAIR, the team hopes that the first Pipebots will be patrolling the water network within five years. Until then, every time there is a leak, water utilities will have to dig through the maze of sewer pipes, gas service lines and cables to fix the leak.
Follow Victoria on Twitter
Comments are closed.