Expanding Robotics

First find a place where a robot would make an operation easier/ safer/ more cost-effective. Then devise the machine and/or tools to complete that task.

Good thought.

Crawling down pipes and making laser measurements.

Crawling down pipes is an interesting one.

Quite a few of these around, but are heavy and can require sections of pipe to be removed for access, or at least have the pipe empty.

Now if someone can design a light-weight unit which can fit through access hatches, and guarantee accurate measurements and easy recovery where the fluid is still flowing, there will be plenty of takers.

Well it solves the problem of the Delta of the ID down the pipe. There is no real way to measure unless an inspector crawled down the ID with an ID micrometer. It also measures ,per API . the out of roundness at 5 locations and the actual ID. All wifi and no wires. Other sensors measure the bow and end squareness. All takes < 2 minutes and makes > 3 K measurements.

i need one to make me a sandwich and get the mail

My iRobot Roomba is extremely useful (for a single guy who doesn't want to vacuum the carpets and floors).

Now, if they would just make one that cleaned itself out!

Hooker