Soft robots for underground network ducts

Openreach has taken the task of replacing the copper cables in the UK's underground network with fibre optic cables. A major delay in this process is caused by blocked ducts. In 2016, 40% of ducts contained blockages, leading to civil engineering costs of £18M. A robotic solution to reduce spending is to deploy a robot capable of dislodging blockages and removing material or penetrating through blockages to add new cables. BT's first priority is to add new cables, removing the blockage material is secondary. The key causes for a duct to become blocked are twisting cables, silt deposits and root ingress. Combining these elements creates an environment that is not easy to traverse.
Questions:
1. How can a soft robot locomote through a tubular environment with multiple varying points of contact and inconsistent friction, to make a path for a cable?
2. How can blockages be penetrated so that new cables can be added?
3. How can blockage material such as silt or roots be dislodged and removed?
Activities:
Further explore modes of locomotion, starting with modelling and prototyping different vibrational modes of bristleBots.
Experiment with blockages at BT's test facility and blockage representations at BRL, explore cutting, dispersing etc