Without manpower, these arachnid robots could be critical to sewer maintenance.
For some years Japan has been facing a very serious problem: it has no workers. Industry and urban planning in the Japanese country have experienced an unprecedented crisis in this regard, and if the trend continues, it is expected to be there 6.4 million vacancies by the end of the decade. One of the sectors that is most affected by this recession is workforcein particular the one that carries out tasks for the sanitation and care of public roads.
Faced with a shortage of profiles to do the job, the technology industry begins to propose solutions. The Japanese manufacturer of robotics Tmsuk presented recently a prototype spider robot designed to perform maintenance tasks on the Japanese sewage system.
These metallic “spiders” work thanks to aa Raspberry Pi CPUs and eight jointed legs that allow them to move precisely through the pipes and canals under Japan’s streets.
The particular resemblance to spiders also served as a marketing campaign
Yuji Kawakuboexplained the president of Tmusk an interview with the South China Morning Post explained why it is important integrate technology into the urban environment:
“Most sewer pipes have a service life of around 50 years and many under our cities far exceed that age. There is a huge shortage of manpower to inspect such pipes and the number is increasing every day. The SPD1 prototypes Pipebots were born to carry out an exhaustive control of the sewers, which, after all, are fundamental for the sanitation of cities”
The robots will pass through the sewage system to carry out precise and comprehensive quality control
Kawakubo explained that in the first instance they thought a model with wheels, but they soon had to reinvent the project. the first robots they were unable to move precisely due to the wet dirt and uneven ground of the sewers. In the end, the eight-legged design worked much better and provided them with a perfect marketing approach in the process: SPD1 – Spider1
tmsuk wants to put an army of these robot spiders in the Japanese sewers on the edge of 2024, performing at least basic quality review and auditing tasks. In the future, the company wants to expand the technological capabilities of bots so that, in addition to checking the state of pipes, they can make minor repairs If necessary.
