Leeds wins £4.2m funding to develop robot fixers of the future
The University is leading a pioneering £4.2m research project with the vision of creating self-repairing cities.
The project will develop small robots to identify problems with utility pipes, street lights and roads and fix them with minimal environmental impact and disruption to the public.
The project is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and was announced today (Friday 16 October) by the Universities and Science Minister, Jo Johnson.
It is part of £21m funding for ‘Engineering Grand Challenges’ research, which aims to tackle some of the major challenges facing science and engineering.
The researchers will initially develop new robot designs and technologies in three areas:
- "Perch and Repair" – research to develop drones that can perch, like birds, on structures at height and perform repair tasks, such as repairing street lights
- "Perceive and Patch" - research to develop drones able to autonomously inspect, diagnose, repair and prevent potholes in roads
- "Fire and forget" – research to develop robots which will operate indefinitely within live utility pipes performing inspection, repair, metering and reporting tasks.
The team will work with Leeds City Council and the UK Collaboration for Research in Infrastructure and Cities (UKCRIC) to ensure that the robots are thoroughly tested before being trialled in a safe and responsible manner in Leeds.
Professor Phil Purnell, from the School of Civil Engineering, is leading the research team. He said: “We want to make Leeds the first city in the world to have zero disruption from street works.
“We can support infrastructure which can be entirely maintained by robots and make the disruption caused by the constant digging up the road in our cities a thing of the past.”
Dr Rob Richardson, director of the National Facility for Innovative Robotic Systems at the University added: “Detecting faults and weaknesses early and then quickly performing smart repairs is the key.
“Our robots will undertake precision repairs and avoid the need for large construction vehicles in the heart of our cities. We will use the unique capabilities of our robotic facility to make new, more capable robots.
The project, ‘Balancing the impact of City Infrastructure Engineering on Natural systems using Robots’, will also track the social, environmental, political and economic impact of these new technologies in the city.
“The critical part of this project is being proactive rather than reactive,” said Dr Raul Fuentes, from the School of Civil Engineering, “This is crucial to ensuring we have sustainable and resilient infrastructure. We will target our interventions so that they are invisible to the human eye, before they become a real problem.”The project brings together expertise from across the University, including the Schools of Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Computing, as well as from the Faculty of Business, Faculty of Environment and the Institute for Transport Studies.
The team also includes researchers from Birmingham, Southampton and UCL, with Nottingham, Sheffield, Oxford and Imperial as supporting partners.
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