Rolls-Royce Is Developing Tiny 'Cockroach' Robots To Fix Airplane Engines (cnbc.com) 49
Rolls-Royce announced today that it is teaming up with robotics experts at Harvard University and University of Nottingham to develop tiny "cockroach" robots that can crawl inside aircraft engines to spot and fix problems. These robots will be able to speed up inspections and eliminate the need to remove an engine from an aircraft for repair work to take place. CNBC reports: Sebastian de Rivaz, a research fellow at Harvard Institute, said the inspiration for their design came from the cockroach and that the robotic bugs had been in development for eight years. He added that the next step was to mount cameras on the robots and scale them down to a 15-milimeter size. De Rivaz said that once the robots had performed their duty they could be programed to leave the engine or could simply be "flushed out" by the engine itself.
Also under development are "snake" robots that are flexible enough to travel through an engine like an endoscope. These would enter through a combustion chamber and would inspect damage and remove any debris. The second "snake" would deposit a patch repair that would sit temporarily until the engine was ready for full repair. No schedule is placed on when the crawling robots will be available. You can view animations of each robot type here.
Also under development are "snake" robots that are flexible enough to travel through an engine like an endoscope. These would enter through a combustion chamber and would inspect damage and remove any debris. The second "snake" would deposit a patch repair that would sit temporarily until the engine was ready for full repair. No schedule is placed on when the crawling robots will be available. You can view animations of each robot type here.
They run on leftover airline food (Score:5, Funny)
Won't be long... (Score:2)
...before someone in the medical community thinks this is a great way to check your prostate.
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"poopy head" -- 3 year old
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It would definitely be an improvement the human doctor who rammed his fist in my rear to check my prostate at my last exam.
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That's not so bad, my doctor had a whole bunch of interns come over and take a look.
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It would definitely be an improvement the human doctor who rammed his fist in my rear to check my prostate at my last exam.
Must have seemed odd when you'd only gone in with a slight ear infection.
Need cockroaches in the cockpit ... (Score:2)
... ... trained to fly [slashdot.org].
The US is Facing a Serious Shortage of Airline Pilots
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Tesla's autopilot is like two levels below that of an airplane, which can pretty much fly itself to destination. The pilot is really only there for takeoff and landing and for emergency handling, now days.
i worked on the flightline (Score:1)
the jet shop was always dropping engines, there's already enough sensors to know when something is wrong, and regular maintenance usually needs the engine off. maybe if were bigger and could diagnose problems and perform maintenance on their own it'd be cool, but it seems silly. i can think of hundreds of other uses for these things though
#1 diagnosed problem for Rolls-Royce engine (Score:5, Funny)
... too many cockroach-robots stuck inside the engine
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They wouldn't have that problem if they went with the other, cooler options: giant cockroach robots.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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R2, that stabilizer's broken loose again. (Score:1)
see if you can't lock it down
Flash? (Score:2)
Does Vimeo use Flash? I just got an empty page on my iPad when I followed the link to the videos.
Ahh. I see! (Score:1)
Bug (Score:2)
"That's not a bug, that's a feature."