The underground excavation industry is exploring mini robots, plasma torches, and superheated gas to replace the massive boring machines now in use.

By CHRIS BARANIUK

FOR DECADES, ENGINEERS seeking to build tunnels underground have relied on huge tube-like machines armed with a frightening array of cutting wheels at one end—blades that eat dirt for breakfast. These behemoths, called tunnel-boring machines, or TBMs, are expensive and often custom-built for each project, as were the TBMs used to excavate a path for London’s recently opened Elizabeth Line railway. The machines deployed on that project weighed over 1,000 tons each and cut tunnels over 7 meters in diameter beneath the UK capital.

But British startup hyperTunnel has other ideas. The firm proposes a future in which much smaller, roughly 3-meter-long robots shaped like half-cylinders zoom about underground via predrilled pipes. These pipes, around 250 millimeters (10 inches) in diameter, would follow the outline of the proposed tunnel’s walls. Once inside them, the bots would use a robotic arm topped with a milling head to penetrate into the surrounding earth and carve out small voids that would then get filled with concrete or some other strong material. Piece by piece like this, the structure of a new tunnel would come together.

“We’re talking about thousands of them,” says hyperTunnel’s director of engineering, Patrick Lane-Nott. “Much like an ant colony or a termite colony works in swarms.”

Each illuminating actuator served as an active marker that can be tracke

The ability of these tiny robots to emit light can enable them to communicate with each other.

• Robot’s actuators work as muscles enabling them to flap their wings
• Artificial muscles were made using ultrathin layers of elastomer 
• Team could almost accurately tell the position and altitude of the robot

A team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, inspired by fireflies, created insect-sized robots that emit light when they fly. Fireflies are known for their luminescence which they use for communication purposes. The MIT researchers who created these tiny robots intended something similar.

They could be part of safety protocols and emergency responses

By Ameya Paleja

• Robot dogs can work well in natural as well as man-made environments
• They are ideal for repetitive tasks and can also be controlled remotely
• Patrol dogs are much better than their gun-totting counterparts

The U.S. Space Force conducted a demonstration using robot dogs in a bid to automate repetitive security tasks at its Cape Canaveral spaceport, a military press release said. 

Robot dogs have been touted as replacements for many routines and highly hazardous tasks since they can get the job done without being exposed to risk, truly man’s best friend. While companies like Boston Dynamics have planned to use them for civilian and emergency purposes, those like Ghost Robotics are working to develop military applications for the same technology. 

 BY MAI TAO

Telexistence has started the mass production of its originally developed artificial intelligence robot, TX SCARA, to be installed in 300 FamilyMart stores, Japan’s top-tier convenience store chain in major metropolitan areas, starting later this month, validating its AI-based “robot-as-a-service” solution for grocery retailers.

TX SCARA was created to do the specific task of restocking refrigerated shelves with bottles and cans, a repetitive, tedious job generally performed by employees in often uncomfortable settings.

TX SCARA can be in operation 24/7, replenishing shelves at a pace of up to 1,000 bottles and cans per day, relying almost completely on its AI system – known as “GORDON” – to know when and where products need to be placed on the shelves. 

The implementation of AI robots in FamilyMart stores will allow retailers to take advantage of the newly created time and economic “surplus” in the store environment. Retailers can focus on further improvements in the store environment for both employees and customers, as well as the profitability of each store.

Tomohiro Kano, general manager of store development department and railway and corporate franchisee department, of FamilyMart, says: “The decline in Japan’s labor population is one of the key management issues for FamilyMart to continue stable store operations.