For this project we’ve developed a snake-like resident robot designed to combat water loss from within. This autonomous robot navigates water pipelines, detecting and reporting leaks in real time. Helping drinking water companies to reduce water loss and improve infrastructure efficiency.

The challenge: powering a resident robot

While the robot has already proven its effectiveness in leak detection, one major challenge remained during development and testing: how do you keep a robot powered and connected when it lives inside a pipeline?

While the final robot will utilize base stations for charging, this approach is impractical during development. Since traditional recharging isn’t an option, we were tasked with developing a continuous power and communication solution that could operate reliably in this unique environment and allow continuous testing.

The solution: a fully integrated tether system

We engineered a robust tether system composed of three key components which will speed up the development and testing capabilities:

• Insertion Points – These not only seal the pipe but also manage tether deployment and storage within the pipeline, while serving as the communication interface.
• The Tether – Designed to deliver uninterrupted power and stable data transmission.
• The Tether Module – Integrated into the robot, enabling seamless operation without compromising mobility or autonomy.

What’s next?

The complete tether system is now fully realized and ready for its first real-world test. This marks a major step forward in making autonomous pipeline inspection truly continuous and maintenance-free and boosting the development into complex robot systems for waterpipes.