This batch of robots can go up into the sky and into the sea to clean up
2024-05-28
Robots can perform tasks such as battling the "fuel consumption assassin" Tenghu underwater, climbing up the fan blades for high-altitude maintenance, crawling through narrow water pipes, and cleaning stubborn dirt. Recently, when a reporter from Science and Technology Daily visited the Huzhou Research Institute of Zhejiang University and the Zhejiang University Yangtze River Delta Smart Oasis Innovation Center, they saw robots of various shapes iteratively testing. These robots are designed for special scenarios and to meet the needs of future industries. In February 2023, the General Office of the People's Government of Zhejiang Province issued the "Guiding Opinions on Cultivating and Developing Future Industries" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions"), proposing to prioritize the development of nine rapidly growing future industries, with the bionic robot industry being one of them. The Opinion proposes to carry out breakthroughs and system integration in technologies such as biomimetic perception and cognition, bio electromechanical integration, artificial intelligence, and visual navigation, and strengthen the exploration of commercial scenarios and personal and home application scenarios. Microorganisms, flora and fauna in the ocean attach to the bottom surface of ships and continuously grow and reproduce, increasing the weight of ships, thereby increasing fuel consumption and carbon emissions, and even posing a challenge for many countries to invade foreign species. Therefore, ships at sea need to regularly clean up biological fouling. However, ships have a large volume and traditional cleaning methods have complex processes, which are time-consuming and labor-intensive. A few years ago, a shipbuilding company in Zhoushan, Zhejiang Province turned this issue to the Huzhou Research Institute of Zhejiang University. Nowadays, the ship cleaning underwater robot developed by the institute has been upgraded to the fourth generation prototype and has been piloted for application. The robot adopts cavitation jet cleaning technology, which efficiently and safely cleans the surface coating of the ship without damaging it. It can clean 15 to 30 square meters per minute, and the thickness of the cleaned attachments is 6 to 9 centimeters. "The market demand for underwater cleaning of ships is very high." Xu Chao, Dean of Zhejiang Huzhou Research Institute and Director of Zhejiang Engineering Research Center for Intelligent Unmanned Systems, hopes that ships can bring their own "razors" to sea and use them whenever they want, without the need to regularly visit hair salons. Robots can not only go into the sea, but also ascend to the sky. At the Aerospace Robotics Technology Research Center of the research institute, multiple hexapod robots of different sizes are neatly arranged. Researchers have introduced that this batch of hexapod robots have the dream of "soaring straight to the sky". According to the design concept, they are expected to be equipped with high-performance visual input and autonomous navigation systems, walking on the surface of spacecraft in a weightless environment, and undertaking space tasks such as auxiliary detection and in orbit maintenance. Its operating arm and supporting leg are designed with an integrated variable configuration, which can achieve free conversion between operating and moving functions. Before being applied to the space environment, these robots still need to be trained in high-altitude environments. According to researchers, traditional inspections of wind turbine blades rely on methods such as telescopes and "spider man" baskets, which have poor safety, heavy workload, and low inspection efficiency. In response to this issue, the team collaborated with a company in Yancheng, Jiangsu to complete a crawling test of a hexapod robot on high-altitude wind turbine blades. In the future, robots can be equipped with tools to replace manual high-altitude maintenance operations. In addition to entering the sky and the sea, robots also have their place in hidden corners. At the Future Water Laboratory of the Zhejiang University Yangtze River Delta Smart Oasis Innovation Center, an intelligent pipeline cleaning robot is immersed in a pipeline with a diameter of only a dozen centimeters every day, simulating a load water pressure cleaning operation. Guo Jian, a researcher at the laboratory, said that over the years, scale, bacteria, and heavy metals have inevitably appeared in the drinking water pipeline network. Unlike large diameter pipes, small diameter water supply pipes are difficult to clean, and there is no large-scale cleaning equipment available on the market. Guo Jian said that for this purpose, the laboratory and relevant units have jointly developed intelligent pipeline cleaning robot equipment and pipeline testing platform, and developed an intelligent cleaning technology for water supply pipelines using ultrasonic guided waves coupled with high-pressure gas water pulses. It can support the robot to clean and detect the interior of the water supply pipeline network with water under a water pressure environment of 0.5 megapascals. At present, the achievement is in the testing and improvement stage. "Studying pipeline cleaning robots reflects our development direction of leading future environmental and urban changes with green, low-carbon, and sustainable development." Lin Weilian, Secretary of the Party Working Committee of the Zhejiang University Yangtze River Delta Smart Oasis Innovation Center, said that Smart Oasis adheres to the guidance of application and product orientation, and follows the industrialization path of "samples exhibits products commodities" to promote innovation achievements from "laboratory" to "application field". Currently, more than 30 related technological achievements have been formed. Xu Chao stated that in the more than three years since its establishment, the research institute has collaborated with Zhejiang University Science and Technology Park Huzhou Base, Science and Technology Innovation Industry Investment Fund, and Intellectual Property Holding Platform Company to form a "one institute, one park, one fund, one platform" model, effectively promoting the rapid landing of research institute's technological achievements. The research institute has incubated a total of 39 technology-based companies, of which 9 have been selected as provincial-level technology-based small and medium-sized enterprises. (Lai Xin She)
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