Spotted the other day: a robot in the Wild! A field crew from H2O Drones B.V. running a well-used Deep Trekker REVOLUTION ROV through an underground passage carrying the north branch of the Düssel river (Nördliche Düssel).
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| H2O Drones - Deep Trekker ROV - exploring the Düssel |
I was not expecting to see a robot crew working out of the back of their van on my walk. Bright yellow tether cables were looped across the pavement, a scratched-up robot perched beside a manhole, and the crew was preparing to send it on a mission into a dark, flooded tunnel under the city. This was no prototype lab machine, not a trade-show robot, but a working robot covered in the scratches, scuffs, residue, and improvised mounts that come from doing real inspection work.
The mission was to scan and search roughly 500 meters of underground river passage. Like many European cities, Düsseldorf has built over the majority of the waterways that feed into the larger rivers. Today the Düssel was running low after the recent heat dome and lack of rainfall, which likely made access easier, but the tunnel still looked like the kind of confined, dangerous, flooded, low-visibility environment where sending a robot is much better than sending a person.
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| Deep Trekker - Revolution ROV - well used! |
The ROV itself looked heavily used, this was a working robot in all respects. The base platform was a Deep Trekker REVOLUTION, I was told - the logos had all been worn off! The ROV already has a primary lighting, camera, and sonar. This robot was fitted with additional equipment bolted to the top frame. The extra hardware looked like auxiliary inspection gear, a large flood light and a camera, or other optical sensing equipment for navigating and documenting the tunnel. Perhaps you can identify the additional sensor, leave a comment.
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| Additional Sensors bolted to the top of the ROV |
This was a real working robot, that is what made it such a good “robots in the wild” sighting. The robot was not a camera drone taking pictures of the city. It was doing infrastructure work: going where people do not easily fit, doing real inspection work. And to me, the exciting part of exploring a hidden underground space - A small robot, a long cable, a dark river tunnel, and 500 meters of the unknown ahead. Very cool to stumble across.
P.S. The crew from H2O Drones were professional and very friendly. They obviously loved their job. When asked what was the most interesting thing they experienced doing inspections, they said "finding a beaver!"
