Water systems all over the world are under stress. Every year, old pipes get older while the population grows and more buildings go up. In the US, trillions of gallons of drinking water are lost to leaks and breakage and the potential repair bill is astounding–$625 billion over the next 20 years just to fix America’s ailing water networks.
Climate change will only make the problem worse, as access to clean water has already become an urgent global issue. This year has seen taps run dry in Johannesburg, while Mexico City is losing up to 40% of its water to decrepit mains and service connections.
But hope is on the horizon: Design and Make companies all over the world are responding to serious environmental problems by making sustainability a priority. According to Autodesk’s 2024 State of Design & Make (US site) report, 97% of companies across industries are taking action to improve sustainability. They’re turning to technology to meet environmental goals–and creating opportunities to develop innovative solutions and build new businesses.
French startup ACWA Robotics is one of those companies. It addresses the critical challenges faced by the water industry by developing robotics solutions that navigate through pipe systems to collect data for more efficient water management.
ACWA’s autonomous underwater robot awaits loading into a test environment simulating conditions inside a water system pipe. Image courtesy of ACWA Robotics.
“ACWA stands for Autonomous Clean Water Appliance,” says Jean-François Guiderdoni, managing director of ACWA Robotics. “Worldwide, 40 million kilometres of pipes bring clean water to buildings, houses and businesses. We lose on average 20% to 40% of the water carried by this backbone of water distribution. That’s a massive amount and it’s related to the condition of the pipes.”
To improve the situation, water utilities need to renew, repair and replace more pipes so they lose less water. But, Guiderdoni says, “Because all that infrastructure was installed a long time ago and buried, they don’t know exactly where and when they should be renewing.”
To provide water system operators with the information they need, ACWA Robotics has pioneered the development of an articulated modular robot that can navigate miles of pipes on its own, without disrupting the water supply. It bends and turns as multiple sensors capture data to pinpoint weak areas, leak locations and more generally identify potential problem spots in order to help utilities take efficient action.
The robot navigates underwater through a water pipe, capturing data about pipe condition and potential problem spots. Image courtesy of ACWA Robotics.
The objective of the company’s intelligent pipe robots is to collect a complete data set about the condition of the water network. “We deal with the larger pipes, what you call the feeders or mains,“ says Guiderdoni. “These are the strategic pipes that, when they break, can affect a whole city or neighbourhood and generate massive financial losses, putting the whole activity of the city to a halt.“
The robots capture metrics such as pipe diameter, residual thickness of the pipe at various locations and areas where corrosion is building up, leveraging high-definition images and a whole set of non-destructive testing (NDT) technologies. Beyond running condition assessments, ACWA’s robots could also collect readings for water temperature, pH, flow speed and turbidity where fixed sensors cannot reach, therefore helping improve water quality and performance.
The robot’s route along the pipeline is established before the journey starts. Points are geo-referenced by longitude, latitude and elevation above sea level and the firm says it will be able to calibrate a location to within a 40 cm. margin of error. After the robot completes its mission, it makes its way back to its entry point or to a predefined exit area.
A rendering of the articulated robot shows how it bends to navigate through a water pipe. Image courtesy of ACWA Robotics.
From the outset, ACWA’s challenge has been to design a unit compact and flexible enough to navigate water system pipes–small enough to let water flow without interruption, yet big enough to carry the onboard systems needed for data collection.
The company turned to Autodesk Fusion to bring its robot to life, with a main body made of aluminium and assembled from 250 parts. Its only pre-built parts are motors, ball bearings, shaft seals, nuts and bolts and batteries; everything else is designed specifically for the robot.
The robot’s design group is divided into two teams, one for mechanical design and one for electronics. Fusion helped both teams collaborate seamlessly and create 2D and 3D blueprints, 3D-rendered images and custom circuit boards, electronic cards and mechanical parts. The teams use Fusion Simulation Extension to conduct and collect precise analyses of stress and thermal simulations.
ACWA Robotics has tested its autonomous robot in simulations of harsh conditions pushing water pressure up to 250 PSI and speed flow up to 1.5 m/s. Image courtesy of ACWA Robotics.
Data gathered by the pipe-traveling robots is used for more than identifying leaks: It establishes a structural assessment of the pipe. “We can tell clients where there’s a lot of corrosion, faulty joints or cracks in concrete pipes,“ Guiderdoni says, adding that this information makes it possible 'to intervene before a leak happens.'
Structural assessment information can provide “a set of clues that will help utilities decide where they should do a repair, where they don’t need to do anything or where they need to renew a pipe this year or maybe in two, three, four or five years,“ he says. “The end goal is to give the utility a very clear view of the condition of the pipe and how they should spend their money.'
Future phases of development will see ACWA’s robots adopt artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to improve how they collect data. “AI is going to allow robots to adapt dynamically during their missions,“ he says. “For example, a robot could be taking pictures inside a water pipe. It might detect a crack. If that crack is a certain shape and a certain length, the robot would stop and take a closer look. This is just one way AI can proactively help with pipe maintenance while gathering more accurate data.”
Workers implement a pilot of a prototype robot with Aqua Publica, the water utility in ACWA’s home city of Bastia on the island of Corsica. Image courtesy of ACWA Robotics.
While ACWA Robotics’ technology continues to evolve, recruiting skilled talent is an ongoing concern for the firm, as it is for many companies in the Design and Make industries (US site). “Finding and keeping talent is a challenge, especially engineers,“ says Guiderdoni. 'It’s key for us to find the right person.“
However, ACWA’s core mission to address critical sustainability issues gives the company an advantage when reaching out to new recruits. According to the State of Design & Make, 72% of business leaders (US site) consider sustainability a top retainer of talent.
Guiderdoni notes that young employees are motivated not only by compensation and challenging work but also by the feeling that they’re having a positive impact on the world. “You have a new generation of people who want to work on sustainability and make an impact,“ he says. “The people who join us can be technologically challenged through their work while seeing the impact of what they’re doing. They know they’re not just a cog in the machine.”
Today’s water system managers face growing pressure to address the challenges of waste, lack of awareness and even indolence that causes decisions about infrastructure investment to get kicked down the road.
“In water, things change slowly,' says Guiderdoni. “We are bringing new technology into a fairly conservative environment, but currently there is a trend of disruption and change. In the past, a water utility might have said, ‘Well, there’s always going to be some water loss. If there’s a problem, we’ll increase the price.’ What they’re finding now is that price has reached a threshold–it’s now more expensive—so they’re starting to drive toward performance.”
–Jean-François Guiderdoni, Managing Director, ACWA Robotics
Pressure to act in a more environmentally conscious way is also ramping up. According to the State of Design & Make report, four out of five companies are motivated to adopt sustainability measures (US site) by the demands of stakeholders across the board. “There are many sources of pressure to be more sustainable–there’s media pressure, corporate pressure, new regulations and incentives from the European Commission or governments,“ says Guiderdoni. “Both governments and companies are realising there’s a lot of economic potential in sustainability. It’s actually creating value and generating a virtuous cycle.”
As water utilities grapple with increased demand intensified by climate change, it’s critical to maximise the value of existing resources–a core principle of sustainability. Guiderdoni notes that recent industry disruptions have included a surge of new technologies to smartly and accurately find leaks in water pipes. “What’s going to drive the next phase is asset management. That means acting before pipes break,” he says. “People are getting conscious now that water and specifically its distribution infrastructure, need to be dealt with quickly. I’m excited about making an impact and showing that we are going to be able to help utilities make changes in the coming years.”
Mark de Wolf is a freelance journalist and award-winning copywriter specialising in technology stories. Born in Toronto. Made in London. Based in Zürich. Reach him at markdewolf.com.
