SightHound

Robosynthesis
believes it has identified a need in the utilities inspection market to provide
autonomous mobile inspection and data capture in difficult to-access structures such as pipes
and tunnels. Preliminary research indicates that such a system does not exist today.
In the UK there are in excess of 700,000 kilometres of water mains and sewers buried beneath
the ground. As a comparison this distance is 200 times greater than the UK’s entire motorway
network. Much of this infrastructure is aged which increases the demands for both planned
and unplanned maintenance in order to maintain the integrity and availability of the network.
Whilst this information addresses the UK these challenges are also present in other developed
nations and pipe survey and maintenance is a global market opportunity.
Large utility companies have significant investments in infrastructure and spend considerable
sums inspecting tunnels and pipelines. For example, global water infrastructure inspection and
repair market is $20 billion / annum which is growing at a compound annual growth rate
(CAGR) of approximately 10%.
Much inspection is at present carried out manually and significant savings in time and money
could be made by carrying this out more efficiently. We anticipate deploying a simple and
inexpensive robot that will operate autonomously and reliably over multiple kilometres.
From informal discussions with inspection industry sources, MDL and Infotec, Robosynthesis
understands that we have a potential solution. We have christened such a system,
‘SightHound’ but the details of how this could be done, technically and commercially, need to
be explored.
This project will seek to understand the commercial viability and potential market for the
Robosynthesis ‘SightHound’ system. If successful, the Robosynthesis-designed ‘SightHound’
system will have a significant market impact and its users will see substantial operational and
financial benefits.