Rolls-Royce works on a small cockroach robot to check and repair aircraft engines



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Imagine a small miniature robot able to penetrate inside an airplane to check it and fix it. Well, that's exactly what Rolls-Royce, the British aerospace engine specialist, is working on. As they told CNBC, they are miniature robots with which they aspire to improve and speed up the inspections of their engineers.

As they explained, the engines must be removed from the plane and opened. Inspect and repair them, which takes time. But with these robots, the company wants to be able to perform the checks without having to dismantle anything unless it is strictly necessary, which could save them a lot of time in repairs

combustion chamber, "says James Kell, technology specialist at Rolls-Royce. "If we did it conventionally, it would take us five hours, with those tiny robots, who knows, it might take us five minutes."

These are not autonomous robots, but some some that would be controlled directly by the engineers themselves. To do this, they would be equipped with cameras with optics to scan in 3D, and all this in machines of a size of only 15 millimeters with only a few tens of grams of weight.

The robots could also be redrawn on the fly to perform different tasks, which would allow to work in teams with several of them. For example, a first mechanic without much knowledge could enter the combustion chamber of one of the engines to make a first diagnosis and repair some small problems with an integrated tool. Meanwhile, another more experienced could prepare another of the robots to solve more complex problems.

The design was developed in collaboration with the universities of Harvard and Nottingham in the United States and the United Kingdom. insects that have been developing for a few years. With this union, they hope not only to advance their badroach robots, but also plan to design others in the form of a snake that can crawl and cross the engine as an endoscope.

There is no date to put them in March

The British company has not yet talked about a possible date in which these robots could be ready in the form of D & D. An insect. However, they are currently preparing a similar concept with a robot capable of repairing the damage of an engine's compressor blades, and they want to start using it in two years.

It would be a robot of a smaller size that could be screwed to the motor, so that the engineer could also remotely examine it with a 3D scanning system. In this way, you can first diagnose a problem and then equip the robot to make the necessary repairs.

Moreover, these are not the only projects on which Rolls-Royce is embarked. Without going further, two days ago, he also announced two days ago his plan to create a "flying car" in 2020, which would fly at a speed of 400 km / h with a range of 800 kilometers [19659011] (function (d, s, id) {
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