Snakes on a plane slither in engines
Baku, September 29 (AZERTAC). JUST sometimes, snakes on a plane can be a good thing. Snake-like robots wielding UV lasers may soon slither deep inside aircraft engines to seek out and repair damage, according to the British jet engine maker Rolls-Royce. Once it is up and running, the technology should help airlines deal with potential engine problems on the spot to keep planes in the air and avoid delays for passengers.
The idea for the snake robot stems partly from the fact that engine makers like Rolls-Royce and General Electric in the US routinely use intelligent algorithms to monitor the health of plane engines in flight. The software analyses data sent from around 100 pressure, temperature and vibration sensors embedded in each engine. These algorithms flag up trouble spots. But taking a plane out of service to strip down the engine can cost an airline millions of dollars - so technologies that can quickly inspect them are needed.
Rolls-Royce is developing the technology as part of a €4 million European research project dubbed Miror, alongside industrial partners, who also need robots that can wriggle into small spaces. The snake robot prototype should be completed by July 2014, Miror project engineer Salvador Cobos Guzman of the University of Nottingham, UK, told.
The thinnest snake robot that OC robotics have developed is just 12.5 millimetres wide - pretty close to what Rolls-Royce is aiming for - but it is only 60 centimetres long. Buckingham doubts that kind of length will be of great utility in a jet engine. Rolls-Royce is also developing robust camera chips that can be installed around the engine's 2000 °C core. The idea is that on engine shutdown, certain of the cameras in this interior CCTV network can be activated remotely by staff at Rolls-Royce's operations centre to give an instant picture if algorithms have suggested damage - before even the snake robot gets a look in.
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