A robot that weeds, a robot that travels to the deep sea with a camera, and a robot that fishes blue-green algae out of the water. These and five more robots can be seen on Wednesday 30 January 2019 during the demo day of TU Delft's minor in Robotics.
The demo day is the annual highlight of the minor Robotics, an educational programme in which student teams from different fields of study spend five months working on a robot, with all the challenges involved. This year, eight different teams are working on a robot. The student teams make the robots on assignment from a client, such as a company or a museum. In many cases, the robots therefore have to solve a concrete problem. During the demo day on 30 January, the teams presented the results of their efforts.
These are the robots conceived:
Weeding
Team: Bolts 'n Bears
Client: Odd.Bot
The Weed Whacker is a lightweight weeding robot that can detect and remove weeds by itself. This will eliminate the need to use heavy machinery that is difficult to reach weeds, and potentially reduce the use of pesticides. The team of students is working with the startup Odd.bot to develop this robot.
To the deep sea
Team: LOBSTER
The deep sea is one of the most fascinating environments on Earth. However, it is very complex and expensive to reach the deep sea for research or inspection, for example. Team LOBSTER is developing a relatively small and autonomous robot that can quickly reach the deep sea, take pictures and/or measurements, and return to the sea surface.
More information: http: //lobster-explorer.com/
Removing blue-green algae
Team: Blooming Robotics
Client: Deltares
In summer, Dutch waters are plagued by an unwelcome guest, blue-green algae. This toxic micro-organism makes activities in and on the water difficult or impossible. Commissioned by Deltares, team Blooming Robotics is developing an autonomous vessel that removes and drains algae from the water surface.
More information: https: //www.bloomingrobotics.nl/
Aircraft engine maintenance
Team: nFocus
Client: KLM Engine Services
Maintaining aircraft engines is a very time-consuming task, which can add up to around 80 hours per service. Team nFocus is working on a robot that can autonomously perform the initial inspection of an aircraft engine. In doing so, they are not only looking at the technical aspects, but also at how the robot can be integrated into the overall inspection and maintenance process.
Cheese ripening
Team: Easy Cheesy
Client: Lely
Team Easy Cheesy is working on a fully autonomous cheese-ripening robot. This robot can drive through a cheese ripening warehouse and handles the entire ripening process of over 3,500 cheeses of about 16 kg. This requires the robot to turn the cheeses regularly so that they do not sag. The cheeses are also coated with a special fungicidal coating so that the cheese stays good.
Autonomous dredging
Team: Indepth Dredging
Client: Boskalis
Dredging ports and waterways uses large ships that travel the world to work there. This uses a lot of fossil fuels and manpower. Team Indepth Dredging's robot, Amphi, should make this process autonomous, sustainable and scalable. The underwater robot drives its rollers along the bottom to suck up silt and transport it to a central pump.
Portable drone show
Team: bHive
Client: MAVlab TU Delft
There are regular drone demonstrations to get people excited about the technology and its many possibilities. bHive has developed a drone show that is easily transported in a crate and can be staged anywhere (indoors). The drones themselves fly up from the crate and return after the show itself.
Coffee Corner robot
Team: Thirst. Robotics
Client: Science Centre Delft
The current coffee corner in the Delft Science Centre consists of a coffee machine and a fridge. The Science Centre would like to turn this coffee corner into an interactive environment that better matches the exhibition space. Team Dorst Robotics wants to automate this process with a modular system and a robot arm.
Source: TU Delft
