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Partners

The Pipebot Patrol consortium comprises 10 organisations who each have a role described below. There are 3 water company partners in total but we will actively share all progress and learnings with the 19 water companies in England and Wales. Although the project is primarily targeting blockages in water-company-owned sewers, we have consulted with three local authorities to ensure our Pipebot is designed with highways drainage in mind as well.

Jet Aire

Jet Aire have 35 years experience of provide specialist drainage services. They provide CCTV services to NWG and other sewerage undertakers, developers and local authorities.

  • Real-world experience of what will and won’t work in sewers.

Newcastle City Council

Member of technical advisory/ working group advising on transferability to highways drainage and storm sewers

Sunderland City Council

Member of technical advisory/ working group advising on transferability to highways drainage and storm sewers

Gateshead Council

Member of technical advisory/ working group advising on transferability to highways drainage and storm sewers

Thames Water Supporting Partner

  • Sewer subject matter experts
  • Workshop participants/advisors
  • Member of technical advisory/ working group

Southern Water Lead Partner

  • Sewer subject matter experts
  • Workshop participants/advisors
  • Member of project steering group

Cura Terrae

Cura Terrae has extensive expertise in environmental monitoring, compliance, and innovative sensing technologies. Cura terrae is a leading systems integrator, with a proven track record of collaboration, field testing and product development with academia and industry, delivering solutions that support the water sector’s sustainability and efficiency goals.

  • Delivery of power and data kiosk/outstations to the robot
  • Electrical engineering
  • Member of project steering group

University of Sheffield (UoS)

School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering

  • Leading robot development and robot autonomy
  • Leading acoustic sensor development, deployment of sonic sensors on robots, processing of acquired data and numerical simulations
  • Leading blockage detection functionality, monitoring and alerting
  • Member of project steering group

Minicam Group

Minicam, part of Halma PLC, are leading specialists in the manufacture and distribution of Pipeline Inspection Systems. For nearly 30 years, we have used our industry experience, alongside inhouse design and production capabilities, to continually innovate and develop solutions for challenging environments producing smart, durable, user-friendly and high-quality systems

  • Provide base robot, supply sewer-hardened crawler, apply design changes
  • Member of project steering group
  • Leading robot-dock development and build

Northumbrian Water Group

  • Overall project management and delivery
  • Stakeholder engagement
  • Sewer subject matter experts
  • Chair of sponsoring executive and project steering groups
  • Leading field trials, dissemination & knowledge transfer and next stage formulation