A digital measuring system for sewage pipes recently developed in Finland examines dirty, dark sewers automatically, without human hands becoming dirty. The person controlling the system can sit comfortably on the surface and let a robot equipped with a camera do the dirty work in the sewer. The robot has a fisheye lens with which it examines the condition of the sewer quickly and efficiently. It finds possibly dangerous incipient holes on the pipes' surface. So no more digging up the roads during the summer!

Painehuuhtelu Oy and the Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT) have combined several technologies and created a system that measures in digital form the condition of a sewer network and thus forestalls widespread damage. The equipment in the systems includes a scanner, lights to light up the pipe and a robot with adjustable wheels. On the surface there is a sling control unit and a computer that can be installed, for example, in a delivery van.

A kilometre a day

The equipment moves rapidly in the sewer and at the same time records information to within a millimetre. The robot does not stop at all while in operation. The information is recorded on a CD disc which holds up to a kilometre's information directly from the pipe. The ready material can be checked by VTT's inspection program, which opens up the pipe and shows possible damage. The system analyzes up to about a kilometre of a sewage network per day.

Thanks to the system's fisheye the full distance between two manhole covers can be brought onto a screen from above and below, from the right and the left. As it moves forward, the equipment does not need to look around.

The Finnish company Painehuuhtelu Oy develops, uses and sells the system.

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