The Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (Metro Water) plans to employ advanced robotic systems for inspecting underground water supply and sewer pipelines in the city. These robotic crawler cameras will enter live pipelines to assess their condition internally, aiming to reduce road excavations and inconvenience to the public. The initiative will focus on identifying issues like leaks, structural damage, contamination sources, and faulty joints that are challenging to detect from the surface.
Three types of robotic systems will be utilized for inspecting pipelines of different diameters, ranging from small lines of around 50 mm to large water mains and sewer lines exceeding 1,000 mm. The inspections will cover selected areas across all 15 zones of Chennai. Equipped with high-resolution cameras and laser profiling tools, the robotic units will capture continuous video footage, images, and map internal deformities along the pipeline’s length.
Gaurav Kumar, the Executive Director of Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board, emphasized the necessity of understanding the condition of aging pipelines without frequent road disruptions. The initiative aims to streamline fault detection processes and save time by utilizing technology to assess the city’s pipeline network, which is nearly four decades old and susceptible to internal deterioration. Following a successful pilot project in 2023, Metro Water has initiated a tender process to engage specialized agencies for systematic robotic inspections over a two-year period.
