Water pipe robots could stop billions of litres leaking

Three billion litres of water are lost through leaks every day in England and Wales.

Miniature robots have been developed by scientists to patrol the pipe network.

It will be difficult to maintain the network without robotics.

Water UK said that companies were pouring billions of dollars into leaking water.

There is a lack of investment by water companies. Several that it said were letting down customers and the environment were named. Water UK said that leaking was at its lowest level since privatisation.

Across the UK, hundreds of thousands of kilometres of pipe - of varying age and in varying condition - provide millions of properties with water.

Colin Day from Essex and Suffolk Water said that it's difficult to know where the rest of the pipes are because only half of them are visible.

This year, the issue of waste water has caused a lot of concern. South East Water, South West Water, and Yorkshire Water all have hosepipe bans in place. 20% of customers in England and Wales don't have enough money to pay their water bill

In the last year, companies have been able to reduce their leakage.

The industry wants the amount of water lost to be halved. Water UK accepted the need for accelerated progress. Special in-pipe cameras, satellite imagery, thermal drones, high-tech probes, and artificial intelligence are some of the latest technology that it is adopting.

• There is about 217,000 miles of water main in England and Wales and more than 300,000 miles throughout the UK.
• The network is made from a mixture of materials, including plastic, cast iron and steel.
• An average UK household uses nearly 350 litres of water every day, according to the Energy Saving Trust.

The site of the leak repair was visited by us. A team was carefully excavating at a suburban site to locate an underground leak.

Colin Day from Essex and Suffolk Water said that it wasn't visible.

The biggest leaks have been covered. These are the smaller leaks that we need to find.

Essex and Suffolk Water are testing non-dig repairs that can be safely injected into pipes to repair cracks. Scientists say that the technological revolution in leak prevention will be miniaturerobots.

tethered robots are used to investigate pipes that are difficult to access. Most of the network is not accessible. Artificial intelligence machines come in this area.

A new generation of underground robotic pipe patrollers is being tested.

A pipeBot is a mobile robot with cameras for eyes and all-terrain legs. They are being developed in partnership with the water industry to find cracks and weaknesses before they become leaks.

Prof Kirill Horoshenkov says that companies only respond to fault at the moment. We need to have the presence ofrobots so they can continuously collect data.

Prof Horoshenkov was holding a toy car-sized robot in his hand. They are designed to decide if the pipe is likely to cause a fault or not.

Prof Netta Cohen is an artificial intelligence specialist.

There isn't a gps device. They will use sound or internet to communicate.

She is working with her colleagues to develop a system where a larger robot carries a group of smaller ones.

Prof Cohen said that the little guys will be deposited into the smaller pipes and collected when they're done. All these kilometres of pipe will need a whole society of robot workers.

She said it was so urgent to do something about the state of our infrastructure. It has implications for the environment as well.

Prof Cohen said that the water pipes beneath our feet are some of the most inhospitable on the planet. We can't do this without the help of machines.

The ICAIR team wants the first pipebots to patrol the water network in five years. Every time there is a leak, the water companies have to dig around the pipes to fix it.