GE Aerospace introduced wonderful robotand a particularly soft one called Sensiworm (Soft ElectroNics skin-innervated robotic worm), which is intended to improve aircraft safety.
The camera-equipped Sensiworm was designed to inspect aircraft parts such as engines, and the General Electric subsidiary suggests the tiny device “could serve as an extra pair of eyes and ears” for engineers.
The video (above) released by the company on Thursday shows the Sensiworm doing its thing: crawling through the gaps and curves of the engine, looking for cracks and corrosion, while simultaneously sending live video to its human operators.
Today’s aircraft inspections already use state-of-the-art equipment, but they face some limitations. A video borescope, for example, cannot view the entire engine turbine because gravity naturally causes the tip to sag when it is not resting against the structure inside the engine. On the other hand, self-propelled robots such as Sensiworm offer engineers much greater access, eliminating the need for them to disassemble the engine for a more thorough inspection.
“With mini-robots like Sensiworm, maintenance operators will have a few extra pairs of eyes and ears to perform inspections on the wing,” said Deepak Trivedi, principal robotics engineer at GE Aerospace Research. “With a sleek and compliant design, they can inspect every inch of a jet engine, transmitting live video and real-time data on the condition of parts that operators typically inspect.”
While the remote-controlled Sensiworm is only capable of performing inspections, GE Aerospace has suggested that a future version of the robot will also be able to perform repairs.
The creation of Sensiworm was made possible through several funding and development partnerships involving SEMI Flex Tech, the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, Binghamton University in New York, and UES, Inc., a research and development organization based in Ohio.
It’s unclear when the final version of the untethered robot will be ready for use, but when that day comes, it promises to be an effective safety tool for the aviation industry.
This isn’t the first time General Electric has worked on robotic worms, and the company has also created one for an activity very familiar to regular worms: tunneling.
Source: Digital Trends
I am Garth Carter and I work at Gadget Onus. I have specialized in writing for the Hot News section, focusing on topics that are trending and highly relevant to readers. My passion is to present news stories accurately, in an engaging manner that captures the attention of my audience.
