Acoustic communication technology for robots in buried pipes

英国的清洁水管网正以每年1.161亿立方米的惊人速度流失水，占供应的处理水的20%以上。为了应对这种情况，主要的水务公司正在投资于最先进的研究中心（例如，诺森伯兰水公司正在开发国家泄漏研究和测试中心，https://waterinnovation.challenges.org/winners/nlrtc/），而谢菲尔德大学已经建立了综合民用和基础设施研究中心。ICAIR提供新的定制设施（ICAIR, https://icair.ac.uk/）。将开放学生发展世界领先的声学通信科学、技术和标准通信协议，这些协议可以被成群的自主机器人用于检查和修复由水务公司管理的大型地埋管道网络。这些机器人是EP/S016813/1计划拨款（www.pipebots.ac.uk）的一部分，将在超过100万公里的加压供水和部分填充的污水管网中运行。预计该学生将利用机器学习、统计建模和其他人工智能技术的组成部分来开发一个强大的声学通信算法。以往的研究表明，埋地管道中机器人群之间的可靠通信是机器人检测方法高效工作的关键，但目前急需的通信技术尚不存在。预计开发技术所需的这门科学和技术本身将转移到石化和核工业、电信和HVAC（加热、通风和空调）系统的其他管网中。

The UK's clean water pipe network is losing water at an alarming rate of 1161 million m3/year, or over 20% of the treated water put into supply. In response to this major water utilities companies are investing into the state of the art research centres (for example, Northumbrian Water are developing the National Leakage Research and Test Centre, https://waterinnovation.challenges.org/winners/nlrtc/) while the University of Sheffield have already set up the Integrated Civil and Infrastructure Research Centre . The new bespoke facilities available in ICAIR (ICAIR, https://icair.ac.uk/). will be open to the student to develop a world lead in acoustic communication science, technology and standard communication protocols which can be adopted by swarms of autonomous robots inspecting and repairing a massive network of buried pipes managed by water utilities. These robots, developed as part of EP/S016813/1 Programme Grant (www.pipebots.ac.uk), will operate in over 1M km of pressurised water supply and partially filled wastewater pipe network. It is expected that the student will make use of machine learning, statistical modelling and other components of AI technologies to develop a robust acoustic communication algorithms. It has been shown through previous research that reliable communication within robot swarms in buried pipelines is essential for the robotic inspection approach to work efficiently but the much needed communication technology does not exist and is urgently needed. It is expected that this science needed to develop the technology and technology itself will be transferable to other pipe networks in petrochemical and nuclear industries, telecommunication and HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) systems.