Reviewed by Lexie CornerFeb 3 2025
The PIPEON project, led by TalTech, is developing robotic and AI-based technologies for mapping, monitoring, and maintaining Europe’s sewer networks. The project involves 12 European partners and focuses on autonomous robotic systems alongside AI-driven modeling and analysis tools.
Working in sewers presents a myriad of technological challenges. There are currently no robots that can work without direct human intervention and last for a long time in such featureless, harsh environments. Image Credit: PIPEON, Simon Tait, University of Sheffield & TalTech
The implementation of these technologies is intended to enable early detection and resolution of sewer defects and blockages, reducing the need for reactive maintenance. Addressing issues before they escalate could minimize sewage overflows into urban areas and waterways, supporting the objectives of the European Commission’s recently approved Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive.
Technical Challenges
Professor Maarja Kruusmaa, the project leader from TalTech, noted that while sewer repair and maintenance are well-established tasks, their execution in confined sewer environments requires significant technological advancements.
Robots are mostly used to perform dirty, tedious, and dangerous work and are sent to hard-to-reach places instead of people, but few people have remembered that one of the most complex, dangerous, and hard-to-reach environments in the world is right here under our feet when we walk home from work every day.
Maarja Kruusmaa, Professor and Project Leader, TalTech
Developing effective robotic systems for sewer inspection presents multiple challenges.
There are currently no robots that can work without direct human intervention and last for a long time in such featureless, harsh environments.
Maarja Kruusmaa, Professor and Project Leader, TalTech
New locomotion mechanisms must be designed to allow robots to navigate wastewater containing solids and fats. Additionally, autonomous navigation in low-visibility conditions requires advanced control systems capable of operating within pipes of varying dimensions and orientations.
Robotic systems must also function autonomously for extended periods without access to communication networks, GPS signals, or pre-existing detailed maps of sewer infrastructure.
We will use machine learning algorithms to navigate underground as well as to identify potential defects. But robots are small, and we cannot use unlimited computing power, as is the case, for example, with large language models like ChatGPT. We need to make sure that the robot's own small on-board computer is able to process, learn, and decide, and this requires a completely different type of artificial intelligence.
Maarja Kruusmaa, Professor and Project Leader, TalTech
Project Consortium and Funding
The project has received funding from the European Framework Programme on Robotics and Artificial Intelligence.
“We managed to convince the European Commission that, on the one hand, the project has a very big impact on the environment, the economy, and society, and that, on the other hand, we are the best team,” Kruusmaa stated.
The multidisciplinary research team includes 12 partners: the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, the University of Sheffield, and several innovative European technology companies. Among them is the Italian start-up Herobots, which is developing novel actuation mechanisms, as well as multiple water utilities.
Professor Simon Tait, an expert in Water Engineering at the University of Sheffield, emphasized the importance of the project: “With over 3M km of sewer in Europe, subject to climate change, new environmental obligations and an aging workforce, water utilities need radically new approaches to maintaining their service to citizens’ we believe that autonomous in-sewer robots is an approach that can help meet these challenges.”
By the conclusion of the project, the team aims to have tested robotic prototypes in multiple European sewer networks, providing a foundation for large-scale deployment of sewer robots in the 2030s.