Japanese under-floor inspection bot announced

If you grew up / live in a house that has a crawl-space underneath and were (or perhaps still are) the one who gets pegged for crawling under the house to run television or Ethernet cables, then this robot will come as a blessing. Our robot-breeding friends over in Japan -- at the Chiba Institute of Technology and the University of Tsukuba -- have announced the development of a crawling robot that can slide across dirt floors and lift itself over plumbing and other pipes. It's designed to fit spaces 500 millimeters (19.68 inches) wide and 300 millimeters (11.8 inches) tall, and a remote allows you to steer it around and shoot still images of your crumbling foundation (we also assume it can transmit them live to a display somewhere). Currently, the unnamed bot is only being tested on the CIT campus, but prototypes are expected to be unleashed by March 2007, with full commercial production coming by April 2008. While this bot doesn't yet (from what we gather) know how to lay cable, we really hope someone teaches them how, given that it's no fun to spend the better part of an hour crawling around under a house to lay an Ethernet cable, only to find that it's a foot short -- not that we're still bitter about that one hellacious day in 1998 or anything.

[IrishGandalf @ Oct 28th 2006 10:09AM]

i for one welcome our crawing, foundation inspecting robot overlords.

[IrishGandalf @ Oct 28th 2006 10:11AM]

crawling i mean

[Leon Lamle @ Oct 28th 2006 10:13AM]

i hope cable is the only thing it lays... ill be mighty pissed if these guys start layin Dynamite under my house. although...

[Matt @ Oct 28th 2006 11:12AM]

I for one welcome our subservient, crawling underlords.
Besides, if they get ideas above their station, we can turn on under floor heating and cook 'em. :)

If they start laying cable, a second cooperative bot would be useful. There's gonna be places where they can' get to but could pass cable through.

[greypoet @ Oct 28th 2006 5:28PM]

In these worrisome days, these things would make wonderful surveylence(sp) units for possible terrorist targets.

[John Doe @ Oct 28th 2006 6:09PM]

See if they had this in Aliens they would have never gotten in.

[strider_mt2k @ Oct 29th 2006 11:31AM]

Dude.

measure twice...

[Ben H @ Oct 30th 2006 11:49AM]

I solved a similar problem using an R/C tank, wireless camera, and a wife doped to the gills on pain killers:

http://hallert.net/misc/tankcam/tankcam.html

Probably a little cheaper, but rhen again, not quite as capable by an order of magnitude.

[sajal @ Mar 15th 2007 10:06AM]

thank you

[Dhomas @ Nov 11th 2007 10:02AM]

We use those Axis cameras where I work. They're great little cams, with a built-in linux video server streaming MPEG4. At over 1500$, though, they're a bit on the expensive side: http://www.axis.com/products/cam_213/index.htm.