High-tech robots do the dirty work

The KA-TE robot can make its way through tight spaces. KA-TE Systems

Swiss engineers have developed a way of laying fibre optic cables without tearing up roads.

Most cities have long had a comprehensive network of pipes linking all its buildings – the sewer system. Now a Swiss company has perfected a robot that can install fibre optic cables in sewers, without disturbing the infrastructure.

The robot, developed by engineers at KA-TE Systems, is based on an existing machine which already cleans, improves, and smoothes the inside of sewers.

It follows in the footsteps of a German company, Robotics Cabling of Berlin, which developed a similar robot in 1998.

“What makes KA-TE’s robot different is that it installs the cable without disturbing the ceramic pipe infrastructure,” explains KA-TE’s Franz Müller.

“Other robots drill a hole in the pipe to hold a hook which guides the cable along the tunnel. KA-TE’s robots install a circular ring that fits inside the pipe for holding the cable.”

Earthquake resistant

The sewer system is an ideal conduit for such cables, and not only because it makes tearing up roads unnecessary. Cables can be laid all year round, irrespective of the weather, and sewers are normally deep enough to withstand earthquakes, bombs and other disasters.

The Swiss company’s first customer in the United States is CityNet, an alternative telecommunications carrier. It is buying 53 of the remote controlled, sensor and camera-equipped robots – at a cost of $750,000 each – to install fibre optics cables in a number of metropolitan centres.

Fibre is already common in networks which connect cities and continents. However, the “last mile” – a term that describes the final few metres from the local telephone exchange to the customer – has so far been neglected because the cost of replacing the copper wiring installed decades ago is just too high.

The savings made by using the sewerage system to carry the cables has enabled carriers such as CityNet and Urband, a new telecommunications operator, owned by London’s water utility, to install fibre throughout the city.

Climbing the walls

While KA-TE’s robots are penetrating the sewer systems, another army of Swiss robots could soon be climbing walls, the walls of buildings, that is.

Niederberger Engineering of Stans has developed robots which perform another type of dirty and dangerous work: cleaning high-rise windows and building facades.

The company has long produced high-tech façade-cleaning lifts and cranes which typically suspend (human) window cleaners from the roofs of high-rises to clean the outsides of buildings, developed the new robots with researchers from Solothurn’s University of Applied Science.

The new robot, called CleanAnt, was developed with researchers from Solothurn’s University of Applied Science and is equipped with a processor, sensors, actuators, cleaning tools and power supply which can operate without human intervention.

Climbs like a caterpillar

“With its motor-controlled joints, suction cups on its feet, and two legs at the front it can climb the walls like a caterpillar, using its cleaning equipment to the remove dirt from the surfaces,” says Anton Niederberger, CEO, Niederberger Engineering.

A simple, remote controlled version will be available for delivery this year. The fully autonomous system will be available one year later.

The two robotics projects described above shared honours with 12 other inventions and projects in a competition organised by Switzerland’s cantonal governments and industry as examples of the country’s high-tech prowess.

by Valerie Thompson