Question: What do the robots repair? How does this help people?

Viktor Doychinov answered on 27 Sep 2020:

The robots that I have worked as part of a team on are what’s called “infrastructure robots”. Their purpose is to help us humans maintain and improve our infrastructure, that is our roads, our lights, our water and sewer pipes, among other things.

For example, one robot is a drone which can find cracks in the roads, land on them, and fill them with asphalt. This way the crack can be fixed before it turns into a pothole, and before the road needs to be closed for repairs. We can then experience fewer disruptions and less delays.

Another example are the robots that will go inside water and sewer pipes to inspect and repair them from the inside. The aim is again to reduce disruption, but also to save drinking water. If we find there’s a small crack in a water pipe we can dig out just a small, precise portion of it, and fix it before it bursts.