A huge future need is for small tunnels to rebuild pipes without tearing up streets or to go long distances deep under inaccessible terrain, for water, electric, H2 gas services.
He musted been bored on a ride in the boring company hyperloop, da komrad, that pun really digs into your inner deep parts and flows rifght through you.
Personally, I have some serious doubts. It definitely won't be leaving a "finished tunnel behind" as claimed at 5:56. Such a tunnel would likely have some gaps between concrete injections. There would be water ingress which means that the entire structure needs to be waterproofed and reinforced concrete liner needs to be pored along the entire length of the tunnel. That is still a heck of a lot of work.
I was also unclear about why it would be 10x quicker if there's still a Robot needed which would need to bore out the middle. Perhaps it's only for soft types of earth and excavation without fear of collapse because of the Injection process before
@@captiannemo1587meh, unless they've got wheels that are jammed, another robot might be able to push them out. Would take time, but no human would be involved. I'm sure they're sturdy enough to not break too often and if they break, they're movable by others in the swarm
@@bastianversteeg9221 Hmm, except when the drill cutting the access points along the main bore gets stuck. Maybe something collapses and prevents the drill being removed - now that robot is well and truly stuck.
I think they are being very optimistic about how fast this will take off, but I like the idea. Particularly the part where they map the geology of the entire tunnel wall before there is a lot spent on the project. The reduced risk on the project from that alone will certainly get companies interested in this.
I feel like this is probably the great idea for using these robots. Make them only drill the small tunnels and map the virtual twin. This way if there's some "surprises" the robots will find them way before all other work has started.
That's not optimism. That's econ spazz's lying through their teeth. No engineer in their right mind would make such claims. I have seen it plenty in my work. It's never those who actually know what's going on. It's econs trying to sell a product that doesn't exist yet and never will.
This is going to take off very fast. As it is now, when a new DUMB or subterranean connecting tunnel is created, the peasants always hear the reverberations, and a decent cover story has to be created. This way will be much quieter, and therefore more effective.
This is probably the most practically scalable piece of innovation in the sector in a long time. It's rough and rudimentary now, but they've proven it works. I'm eager to see where this tech is up to in 5 years.
They proved it worked in an ideal environment though. I work in the mining industry and see how badly stuff gets beat up. They are making something complicated that needs to be simple. Simple means easy to fix. Any downtime is big money.
It's an innovative concept, but I'm curious to see them an actual, full-scale 'demo' (aka, actually building a kilometer-long tunnel, for real application, in real terrain with the mentioned hundreds of robots). It's neat to see the concept working under what is essentially 'lab conditions', but I'd wager there's a good number of issues to resolve that they haven't even found yet (and which will require a full-scale project to become visible.
I am with you on that, the narrator was definitely too optimistic calling it real world, it was just pile of sand, they pretty much took apart a sandcastle. A very large sandcastle is what they took apart I would love to see them drill through rock
@@piisfun If there are a large enough amount of the robots, you may actually be able to create a wireless mesh network in the pipe. Wireless doesn't travel underground, but it does in a pipe atleast a some distance. Bends are tricky, but reflections can be useful for that
@@RedRyan I work in the mining industry. The amount of beating this stuff would be taking drilling into rock all day would just end with more issues. Like what happens when a robot gets legit stuck in the pipe? A dumb workhorse can take that beating because everything is massive.
@@pin65371 The robots are likely powered by wire, so in most cases you can just yank it out. There could be edge cases where they are trapped against something. I think the benefit of using swarms of smaller robots is that there is no maintenance period. The cost should be low enough that they can be easily replaced instead of refurbished.
Given they can have multiple in a single pipe and they can cross each other I don’t think they can be powered by wire. I’d imagine a likely rescue scenario involves a functional robot shunting a dead robot to the end of the tunnel.
First I want to see those robots drilling a 10 km tunnel through granite and really difficult geology before even consider this a serious idea. I have worked in tunnels and as a foreman and a blaster who has worked in construction for almost 15 years I’m very skeptical.
Engineer here : I want to see 2 of these robots be proof-tested to be able to cross each other for 1000 runs. (And even then I doubt it would be faster or cheaper than TBM).
Thousands of robots means thousands of potential breaking points. What if there's a water leak or too hard rocks? How would you recover a faulty robot from a bore spanning literal kilometers? What if the drill or injectors get stuck? Will the facility need expensive maintenance workers and repairmen? This might be half the cost but will take twice as much time during it's early real world trials.
Specialy because you also need, filling and charging stations. The robots need maintainance, new drill, hardening liquid, and batterys. Also there will be debry in the pipes, a small rock and one robot get wedged up blocking the hole pipe, good luck recovering it.
Not to be a downer, but this basically splits the operation of a TBM into two unnecessarily complicated parts. Instead of a simple single drilling element you have multiple points of failure robot swarm. Also making the structural lining of the tunnel "custom to the geology" is a terrible idea as this will make maintenance with standardized components impossible (unlike replacing a standardized concrete segment placed by a TBM)
"simple single drilling element" this is the misunderstanding. Large tunnel boring machines are the complete opposite of simple and easy. They are massively complex and hard to work with. Look up any documentary on how the machines work and you will get the idea. Conversely small pipes are easy to work with and build, as are small size robots. Theoretically if they put enough development into the concept it would be substantially easier and cheaper of a method.
@@johnjingleheimersmith9259 A boring machines act as a single design unit. Your phone is complex piece of equipment but its simple to use, because all fucntions are integrated. Anyway the problem with tunneling is rarely the speed at which you can drill. Its the speed of logistics, removing material and bringing in material. A tunnel also need a LOT more finishing work than show in the video. This idea MAY be useful for some underground structure. When pipes need to be drilled for a limited distance (100m?) it may work out. Nowadys this is done by overlapping drilled concrete pillars. Could be faster if less drilling is required and material injected inbetween. Just MAYBE. Remember the golden rules of innovation: Ideas are cheap, execution matters. The worst enemy of a good idea is a bad idea that has support by "smart" people (eats up all the resources and frustrates the people who can really execute but are forced to follow bad ideas.).
@@michaelrenper796 "A boring machines act as a single design unit. Your phone is complex piece of equipment but its simple to use, because all functions are integrated." A boring machine, actually has many exposed segments. Yes they interact together but how is this different than these robots? I'm not sure I see what the supposed argument of difference you are proposing is here. "Anyway the problem with tunneling is rarely the speed at which you can drill. Its the speed of logistics, removing material and bringing in material." Who said anything about speed? This concept theoretically requires far less logistics and the rest is automated. The size and complexity of assembling and maintenance of tunnel boring machines is the biggest logistical challenge for them. Movement of material is addressed through similar automation by bots as well. They have the same issues minus the transport and maintenance of large components. "A tunnel also need a LOT more finishing work than show in the video." How is this any different? Large boring requires the same things. "This idea MAY be useful for some underground structure. When pipes need to be drilled for a limited distance (100m?) it may work out. " It's far easier to drill small pipe diameters far greater distances than large diameter tunnels. See: Kola Superdeep Borehole "Nowadys this is done by overlapping drilled concrete pillars. Could be faster if less drilling is required and material injected inbetween. Just MAYBE." What are you even talking about? No it isn't. Even with boring machines they use prefab sections of tunnel in place behind the borehead. "Remember the golden rules of innovation: Ideas are cheap, execution matters. The worst enemy of a good idea is a bad idea that has support by "smart" people (eats up all the resources and frustrates the people who can really execute but are forced to follow bad ideas.)." Who said execution doesn't matter? This whole thing has been about the concept feasibility. Of course people have to execute well. Honestly it just feels like you are preaching obvious truisms as if they are deeply insightful, on a topic that requires actual technical knowledge about drilling and tunnel structural engineering. I'm skeptical about any new technology, but this really doesn't seem that far outfield and the challenges not technically that complex. The hardest part will be manufacture and design of the robots.
@@johnjingleheimersmith9259 thank you John for being so insightful. I appreciate it when people and TH-cam comments actually take the time to think about these things and form good replies
This is a interesting project but I do worry that the composite idea of injecting material into rock could be problematic The use of the “digital twin” is interesting but scares me a little because most sane people would call that a blueprint or user interface These red flags don’t seem to bad but I’ve noticed companies often use metaversal language to seem smart
Looks problematic, after working on construction 3D printing for many years I know that concepts are easy. Small demo’s are hard, but scaling up to compete against real tech and complying with all the codes. That is truly difficult. Good luck, I hope it works
I can understand it's an interesting possibility for enlarging existing tunnels. One can build the new tunnel around it while the old is still open, shortening the closedown.
I have some doubts about the feasibility of this plan, especially for large projects. One concern is the need to dig tunnels for the robots' pipes. Will the robots be powered by batteries or some other source of energy? Another issue is the mention of reintroducing drills to disrupt the soil and clear out the tunnel. This seems like a significant task that warrants more attention and detail. It is likely that the majority of the "heavy lifting" will take place during this phase.
"... and it actually works." Pretty big asterisk there: If you want to build a tunnel through a pile of dirt and not through any place where you actually would need a tunnel...
I wonder how fast that technology can be built out, I mean it's been in science fiction for a long time and now we know it's definitely possible it would be so amazing to see that kind of thing in person
Boring only. The truly staggering energy requirements mean it's only suitable for narrow holes - the hope is that it'll make geothermal energy more accessible. Faster to drill if you never have to change the bit.
@@vylbird8014 yeah they are going to use some fraction of the total lifetime energy output from a geothermal plant in making the hole using it. Still worth it assuming the geothermal plant gets up and running. Would be a nice alternative to coal mining for investing energy to harvest energy from the ground. Most renewables are actually net energy consumers. No wind turbines has ever made back the energy used to produce it.
When they have to show their product in 3D renderings, and a single experimental demonstration out of loose sand, it means it's not ready for prime time. At the moment, "hyperTunnel" is more accurately described as "Hype or Tunnel?"...
@@pauldarbishire7226 The saddest part though is not that random people are taken in by such things, it's that the lapdog media are so eager to basically provide free "advertising" for them and typically without the slightest hint of skepticism or critical thinking.
They discuss all of those steps of robots, filling up the gaps, concrete injection, autonomous material removal... but the most essential step of getting those boreholes all parallel to each other, following the same geometry is the hardest one. As soon as you meet a large bolter underneath, or a harder material, or gound water, or cavities, or simply not being to generate enough thrust force with such a tiny drilling device. That's what is the most interesting. I've been surveying tunnels since a decade and those tiny machines are always a pain in the butt! Though, I should admit, I love this creative approach here! :)
Maybe the robots wont be able to detect them, like unintentionally discovering an oil or natural gas pocket, but this will be safer than sending the humans inside to probably die in a cave in or asphixation
I think this system will work great in small complex projects where structural stability is the biggest concern. tube tunnels, pedestrian underpasses, underground stations, basements. those sorts of things. but there is a limit to how many of those robots can travel up and down a single one of those tubes. even if they can pass each other, the air pressure and even minor mistakes in trajectory will severely inhibit save speeds and passing rates. ontop of that the number of points of failure in this system is gigantic. if they lose signal with one of the drones somewhere in the pipe they have to shut down the whole pipe and carefully remove every single one until they can tow the broken one out of the way. which will than be expensive to repair due to its compact size and shape. Great system to use in addition to what we already have but in no way do I think its going to replace tunneling as we know it. it might just open up new envelopes where tunnels can be made that previously couldnt.
I don't think it would be that bad - all the other bots could leave on their own, and a specialized towing bot could extract the faulty one. Shouldn't be too difficult.
@@piisfun I'd expect them to be fully autonomous and not require outside communication to do their job. Whenever they leave the tube to restock on materials / recharge they can get new commands. No need for constant communication with modern tech
What happens when any of those robots fail (general malfunction, drill busted and stuck, material inside pipe preventing proper movement) and get stuck deep inside one of the pipes?
i was wondering about this too, the massive advantage that a large tunnel bore has is that the only point of failure is itself, one point of failure that can be easily repaired, a swarm of robots would be thousands of individual points of failure which could end catastrophically considering just the sheer number. either a failure with movement or more worrying a failure with properly creating the integral structure that would keep the tunnel from collapsing
Worst case would be a robot becoming entirely non-functional, blocking a pipe (they can pass each other only when both are functioning). So they definitely need a way to recover, even forcefully, any robots that suffer a defect, as losing an entire pipe is likely going to screw with the project's integrity.
@@Alblaka Doesn't see like a significant challenge really. You just feed a cable down the pipe that can grab the stuck bot then yank it out. Something plumbers do every day.
No this isn't going to take over tunnelling. It's a solution in search of a problem. This is like the circular runway of tunnelling. These robots are installing a single layer of "composite material" as the only lining. Unfortunately that's not how tunnels are actually built. Firstly, we use concrete because its cheap and meshes perfectly with rebar. Composite materials are not cheap, they drive up the price and generally they have undesirable properties around expansion, temperature or other funky behaviours. Concrete is really good in compression, and steel is really good in tension, unless this material is isotropic then it will need rebar and there's no practical way to install rebar using this method. Secondly, when digging a tunnel we install a primary layer of spray concrete (shotcrete) after excavating, this layer of shotcrete is strong enough for short term construction work. Through the shotcrete we can install additional supports such as rockbolts (not sure how these robots could even install these). Other liners and membranes can be installed such as void forma to stop water entering the tunnel. Unless this composite is waterproof, how are you going to install a membrane with these robots? Thirdly, when excavating we actually want the ground to converge a little bit, especially in the Sydney region where we have super high in-situ stresses, this relaxation means less force on the tunnel. You can't do that with this. What happens if a robot breaks down and the tunnel is now blocked? What happens if you encounter an unexpected geological condition? Little drill arms, why not just make one big drill that is less likely to break? There's so many reasons why this won't take over tunnelling and there's a reason there's so many caveats at 6:45.
Rather than huge tunnels, there may be an untapped market in having lots of small tunnels for small robots. These small tunnels can form a regional delivery network that can shuttle around small goods very quickly, but more importantly, at low cost. Heck, they could probably build some underground complex that never actually gets visited by humans, but it effectively works as a completely automated warehouse.
Tunneling with swarm robotics will require a power source other than batteries. The energy requirements for tunneling are immense. They will need to be powered by an attached wire, or not be electrically driven.
There's absolutely no way this would ever work. Inserting concrete around the existing dirt? That's not how concrete works. You have to remove that dirt and then insert the concrete, you don't mix it in with it. It's going to make it brittle and crumble as soon as you apply pressure. You would have to develop a new type of concrete, that can integrate the specific type of soil found around the tunnel you're creating. And that's easier said than done considering soil varies from foot to foot. It's good to think outside the box but this will never be viable. Boring machines are the fastest machines we have to make tunnels.
Here's my concern: Sooner or later, a robot WILL jam inside its tube. Not might, will. There needs to be a way to clear these jams, which could very easily mean un-wedging a robot (or disassembling it in-place) and potentially replacing the pipe segment it's in, kilometers deep. Which means (at minimum) an additional robot design, with disassembly and pulling tools. And a further robot design with the ability to to cut the pipe it's in and install new walls. TBM's are big enough for humans to access and service the machine. These robots, are not.
One problem, as someone who works in tunnels (who even recognised the Hinkley Point C footage as I've been in that tunnel so many times) the part that takes the longest is the actual drilling which you would have noticed they kind of skipped over. Also Grouting (the process of pumping concrete into the ground) isn't perfect and goes wherever the easiest path is and is a bit more complicated and random/choatic then how it is presented in the video. Another point is that grouting is not structural we use it more as an added protective layer and to also reduce water ingress. I love seeing innovative in the industry however I admit I have doubts.
This is cool and all, but imagine having to put 30 pipes in perfect radial symmetry along a 1km tunnel. To drill the holes and lay those pipes you need... A iddy bitty TBM. Or 30 of them.
Yeah they work. On soil. Look at that test section. Its 2 plywood walls with just dirt poured in. This shows nothing. You could have dug that hole without support.
there's quite a bit of difference between the fancy 3D rendering, gibberish talking and the actual results in real world: that's what we call marketing
Okay, and how do you get the pipes in, which is used by the robots? Especially if the tunnel is supposed to be very long and may have some curves to it.
as we rise in population and dwindle the resources we have... its so great to see companies find ways to put people out ov work and waste more materials while bragging about thier successes. we never got rid ov kings we just changed the name and celebrate progress.
This looks really exciting for the future of tunnels. I hope this doesn't go the same way as "solar road" and turns into a practical reality. Thanks for sharing as always Fred and your team.
@@Dysiode The issue with "solar roads" was that it was a stupid idea from the beginning. Building a solar panel tough enough to drive on is a genuinely bad idea when you could just use existing pavement technology (which is VERY cheap and easy to repair), and then build massively more efficient conventional solar panels elsewhere. And the "roads make up X amount of surface area which would generate a ton of energy if converted to solar panels" argument made no sense either, when roofs make up significantly more surface area and actually *would* make sense to put solar panels on. The Tesla Loop and Hyperloop concepts are just dumber, more complex, worse versions of a thing that already exists: trains (subways and high speed rail, respectively). Every problem they solve could be solved better by technology that already exists. They only innovation they presented was the ability to grift starry eyed tech investors out of their money; you can't get a lanyard dork excited about building a boring old subway, but tell them Elon Musk wants put a bunch of battery powered cars in a tunnel and they'll be lining up to light their money on fire. And yes, the same issue exists with self driving cars. They do make sense in a small number of situations (maybe long haul trucking on specific interstate routes, moving product around a large factory or warehouse complex, mining, or *maybe* certain military applications), but personal vehicles are definitely not one of them. Even ignoring the problems with getting the tech working and getting people to trust it (which is no small hurdle), what problem does a self driving car solve exactly? Traffic? Having a bunch of empty cars driving themselves around to pick people up and drop them off with make traffic *worse*, not better. The only way they'd reduce traffic is if you had large autonomous cars running set routes, picking up multiple people per trip. Thing is, that exists; they're called busses. Much has been made about platooning groups of self driving cars together to enable greater density on freeways without causing traffic, but there are a LOT of problems with that approach. First of all, it only solves traffic if *all* cars on a given road are autonomous. Otherwise the autonomous cars would have to merge through lines of slow-moving, non-autonomous traffic to get on and off, and that would completely negate the purpose. You'd need special roads just for autonomous cars, because there's no way you'd get 100% adoption. Secondly, it only works if all of the cars are extremely reliable and well-maintained. You could probably make the system robust enough to handle most mechanical failures or inclement without causing a massive pileup, but a disabled car in a platooned system would be a huge traffic problem. And would you feel comfortable with someone's janky tweaker-mobile with 4 mismatched, bald-ass tires and a rebuilt title of questionable quality screaming along 6" from your bumper at 120mph? Because I wouldn't. You may be thinking "these problems are all solvable," and you'd be right; there are ways to deal with all of this. But by the time you move autonomous cars off on to their own roads for long distance travel, electronically couple them together with other cars, and create a system of standardized maintenance and inspections, you know what you've created? Trains. That's just much more complex, stupider train. Just like the Hyperloop and the Tesla Loop, self driving cars are a gadetbahn; they take something that already exists, and creates a "high tech" version which is less efficient, more expensive, and worse. The point of these isn't to improve transportation; the point is to make money, either by bilking gullible investors and government agencies, or by trying to kill something which would be harmful to the business model of the people developing the tech. A Loop or a fleet of platooning self driving cars aren't better than trains, but they do let car companies continue making money while pretending to solve a problem.
This would be cost-effective as compared to Tunnel Boring machine. However, time will only tell how efficient robots are in tunnel construction in the future.
If nothing gets in the way (and this always happens), the idea can be developed even further into better technologies that barely resemble this in a few years. There are dozens of ways a swarm of robots can dig a tunnel.
I think we should find a medium point somewhere between these two extremes. Make a few larger machines of this type instead of a huge quantity of smaller ones. That would reduce the number of points of failure, and if the robots were slightly larger more features could feasibly be put into them that increase their effectiveness. I also think that two problems that would come up can be solved by using more medium sized versions of these robots: If one gets stuck, a larger version of these things could be made so that if it gets stuck it can contract to smaller than the pipe diameter and be retrieved by essentially a long stick and pulled out of the pipe. If foreign material clogs the pipe blocking its access, a larger less swarmy version of these could have a rudimentary borehead and recreate a smaller scale version of conventional tunnel making by boring through the blockage in its pipe so it can continue. Larger versions could also have larger tanks of the expanding concrete compound meaning less back and forth to get the actual cavities it makes filled with the compound.
Very excited for the prospect of swarms of robots on construction jobsites. That system architecture will prove valuable for all sorts of environments. Hoping Hypertunnel can pull off scaling their capabilities.
Probably the size factor. Conventional boring machines are absolutely gargantuan and require cranes, oversized load transport, massive custom parts, so many parts in general I believe I heard it has more than a space shuttle, and the challenges of maintaining the behemoths due to wear and tear. Not to mention the massive amounts of crew you still need to make it all work. Turns into lots of $$$. If you can make the little guys standardized and easy to produce/replace/maintain then theoretically it could be a lot cheaper. Anything big in size the price goes up by a disproportionate amount due to tooling and space requirements during manufacture, etc. Cheaper to make 2 mini fire engines vs one full size large fire engine for instance. Just look at how much a standard 16in pipe wrench costs vs the extra large kind that are 3 ft large.
First of all - stop promoting this shady company. They are a shady company and their sponsorship makes you a disservice. Second of all - what part about this robots makes tunnel boring easier? From the footage shown it's still necessary to bore hundreds of smaller tunnels to insert the initial pipes for the robots. In no way it can be easier to achieve on a scale of kilometer-long tunnels. Then they are going very quick over the part where the outer structure is completed and all that's left to do is remove the soil in the middle. But it's the same tunnel boring process, it's still necessary to drill the center of the tunnel and remove the soil somehow. So making hundreds of smaller tunnels is not easier than making a single big one if in the end all of space between said smaller tunnels needs to excavated just the same.
Yeah, doesn’t make much sense to me either. In excavation and mining operations, having one big machine is usually more efficient than having many small machines.
We've pretty much mastered small pipe drilling. It's when you go big when it gets really challenging. Small pipes are nbd. In fact you could probably drill your own water well pipe yourself using a corded homeowner drill and PVC pipe segments many dozens of feet down. Rocks are about the hardest (haha) part of the process and we've got tons of specialized drill bits and drilling techniques to solve for that. Turning is actually pretty easy and they do it all the time using special flexing drill heads. Just think about how much work and tech has been developed into drilling for oil and other stuff. small pipes are easy, but the problems involved when you scale up for big holes grow exponential due to the need for getting rid of more and more material. It's a math problem really if you realize the volume of material for a 2 in pipe vs a 4 in is basically squaring the radius. So literally exponential. Look at the deepest boreholes we've ever dug and how deep they go then look at the actual size in diameter of the holes.... they're very small and so are the drilling machines used to dig them, relatively. To sum up my long screed, small pipes are incredibly easy for us these days, the big pipes are wayyyy more difficult. I'm not saying this company is legit, but the theory of what they're doing seems a lot less complicated than large scale boring machines.
@@johnjingleheimersmith9259 great reply, thank you the insight. I still don't understand how drilling hundreds of smaller tunnels that almost take the whole diameter of the bigger tunnel can be done faster than a conventional method.
@@screwdriver1337 Well have you ever tried drilling a large hole into something like wood or concrete? If you have then you know it's a lot harder than if you drill a tiny pilot hole first, then it's worlds easier. Bigger holes you might even step up another pilot hole drill bit size to make it even easier. The bigger you go the more material and more torque you need to drill due to the increase force of all the material you need to move.
We need a few of these tunnels through the Sierra Nevada range especially during the Winter. Would increase tourism to places too remote and cut off due to the extreme driving conditions half of the year. Once I was stopped by Italian tourists how they could get to Nevada as it was well into Fall and the mountain passes were closed and my reply was to drive back to Los Angeles as at that time of year the only other way to get across would be I-80 which isn't exactly where you want to be driving around in the winter unless you have experience.
In the animation, it looks like the length of the tunnel is limited to the length of the drill and the pipe. So maybe it could be a good idea for short tunnels like maybe 100 meters or less.
I am a rich bald man who has been waiting for literally decades to become a Lex Luther style supervillain. Everyday my dream looks closer and closer, thank you for the video I look forward to more updates.
Obviously there will be more than one model of robot. 1 for drilling the holes, 1 for inserting the filler, 1 for extracting the material from the holes , 1 for transporting the material, 1 for changing the batteries on the more internal robots, 1 for cleaning the micro hole of waste, 1 for servicing the internal robots, 1 for reducing heat in the hole if necessary, 1 for dealing with water inflowing. etc. And I guess they will all work with a mesh net, so they can relay information and instructions. Sure this is going to take a while to become reality, but the improvements are all incremental.
this looks like a mechanical engineers nightmare. 5000-10000 robots means the points of failure scale tremendously. little bits of grit in all those moving parts will cause failures. they will have to address what happens when there are multiple mechanical failures deep in a pipe that blocks other robots from passing in the pipe. Also, the tracking problem on what has been done and what needs to be done will have huge scaling issues. Check out Stuff Made Here's automated puzzle assembler for reference on the types of problems that will need to be solved.
This is absolutely amazing. I have seen videos of swarms of drones building walls and other structures, and now this is swarms of robots digging tunnels... Seems to me, that the future is going to involve SWARMS of drones and droids in order to get our stuff done. Fantastic. I guess its swarms of Terminators that will be the end of us then? Sweet!
The video made it sound so simple, but that only works with soft soil or soft ground. What happens if you are dealing with hard ones? And depending area, there could be water leakage issues...you can't just build the tunnel first without dealing with those water leaking areas. This method isn't suited for most kinds of digging...maybe good for digging a little heel only.
Maybe. There is some pretty clever stuff going on with drilling holes like that, including curved holes. That would be a video by itself. Drilling several and keeping them parallel would be more challenging, but they can easily add in some tolerance for that.
Not really. We've pretty much mastered small pipe drilling. It's when you go big when it gets really challenging. Small pipes are nbd. In fact you could probably drill your own water well pipe yourself using a corded homeowner drill and PVC pipe segments many dozens of feet down. Rocks are about the hardest (haha) part of the process and we've got tons of specialized drill bits and drilling techniques to solve for that. Turning is actually pretty easy and they do it all the time using special flexing drill heads. Just think about how much work and tech has been developed into drilling for oil and other stuff. small pipes are easy, but the problems involved when you scale up for big holes grow exponential due to the need for getting rid of more and more material. It's a math problem really if you realize the volume of material for a 2 in pipe vs a 4 in is basically squaring the radius. So literally exponential. Look at the deepest boreholes we've ever dug and how deep they go then look at the actual size in diameter of the holes.... they're very small and so are the drilling machines used to dig them, relatively. To sum up my long screed, small pipes are incredibly easy for us these days, the big pipes are wayyyy more difficult.
Old technology: use a tunnel boring machine to remove the dirt, and build the walls out as you do. New technology: Build the walls, and *then* use a tunnel boring machine to remove the dirt. Funny how the 'slow digging machine going through and removing the dirt' part that they were bashing on got glossed over in the tech demo cgi.
Biggest issue I see is the small drones drills they can get through compact dirt, but what about stone and the various kinds and conditions, how do they deal with collapses in the areas they are trying to hollow, exc.
It's an interesting idea, but the title is quite misleading. The swarm of robots isn't really the thing that "built this tunnel". The swarm of robots stabilized the soil that the tunnel was built in, but they still needed a boring machine (5:49) to come in afterward and make the main passageway. I'm not trying to say the robots didnt serve their purpose. Collapse during tunnel drilling is one of the most dangerous parts of drilling a tunnel. So if you had a way to stabilize bad spots before you send in the half-billion dollar TBM, it would definitely be useful. It's a great tool to add to the arsenal, but it's not the tunnel-building revolution it's presented as here.
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A huge future need is for small tunnels to rebuild pipes without tearing up streets or to go long distances deep under inaccessible terrain, for water, electric, H2 gas services.
No
how to get scammed by people with more more than you 101
Thanks. We are like minded. Almost. But I'd rather a share of these future civil engineered projects.
Sounds and looks like a FTX scam or biden scam.
Be honest... how excited were you when you came up with the "How to build a tunnel in a way that's far from boring" line?
He musted been bored on a ride in the boring company hyperloop, da komrad, that pun really digs into your inner deep parts and flows rifght through you.
I feel him channeling the Discovery UK How It's Made penchant for puns!
I yelled with excitement.
I came because he never apologized for the pun. It's one thing to make one 👉🏻 totally another to be shameless about it.
Personally, I have some serious doubts. It definitely won't be leaving a "finished tunnel behind" as claimed at 5:56. Such a tunnel would likely have some gaps between concrete injections. There would be water ingress which means that the entire structure needs to be waterproofed and reinforced concrete liner needs to be pored along the entire length of the tunnel. That is still a heck of a lot of work.
I was also unclear about why it would be 10x quicker if there's still a Robot needed which would need to bore out the middle. Perhaps it's only for soft types of earth and excavation without fear of collapse because of the Injection process before
The other issue is dealing with dead robots that need to be replaced… in line.
@@captiannemo1587meh, unless they've got wheels that are jammed, another robot might be able to push them out. Would take time, but no human would be involved. I'm sure they're sturdy enough to not break too often and if they break, they're movable by others in the swarm
@@bastianversteeg9221 Hmm, except when the drill cutting the access points along the main bore gets stuck. Maybe something collapses and prevents the drill being removed - now that robot is well and truly stuck.
Jeah, I have a hard time seeing the benefits of this compared to normal boring. They just do it multiple times with multiple drills.
I think they are being very optimistic about how fast this will take off, but I like the idea. Particularly the part where they map the geology of the entire tunnel wall before there is a lot spent on the project. The reduced risk on the project from that alone will certainly get companies interested in this.
I feel like this is probably the great idea for using these robots. Make them only drill the small tunnels and map the virtual twin. This way if there's some "surprises" the robots will find them way before all other work has started.
That's not optimism. That's econ spazz's lying through their teeth. No engineer in their right mind would make such claims. I have seen it plenty in my work. It's never those who actually know what's going on. It's econs trying to sell a product that doesn't exist yet and never will.
This is going to take off very fast. As it is now, when a new DUMB or subterranean connecting tunnel is created, the peasants always hear the reverberations, and a decent cover story has to be created. This way will be much quieter, and therefore more effective.
@@johnnymcblaze I mean, you aren't exactly wrong. This could make terror strike attacks via infrastructure and civilian casualties harder to notice.
I feel like this is a much cheaper alternative that will take off in extremely population dense areas like Los Angeles.
This is probably the most practically scalable piece of innovation in the sector in a long time. It's rough and rudimentary now, but they've proven it works. I'm eager to see where this tech is up to in 5 years.
Such technology was used in the early 2000s by flowtex and it was one of the biggest german scams to exist with billions lost.
And Elon Musk didn't make it?? Whaaaaat?
@@lostsauce0 He might buy it.
They proved it worked in an ideal environment though. I work in the mining industry and see how badly stuff gets beat up. They are making something complicated that needs to be simple. Simple means easy to fix. Any downtime is big money.
@@lostsauce0 most the shit Elon makes ain't scalable or useful
It's an innovative concept, but I'm curious to see them an actual, full-scale 'demo' (aka, actually building a kilometer-long tunnel, for real application, in real terrain with the mentioned hundreds of robots). It's neat to see the concept working under what is essentially 'lab conditions', but I'd wager there's a good number of issues to resolve that they haven't even found yet (and which will require a full-scale project to become visible.
I am with you on that, the narrator was definitely too optimistic calling it real world, it was just pile of sand, they pretty much took apart a sandcastle. A very large sandcastle is what they took apart I would love to see them drill through rock
@@piisfun If there are a large enough amount of the robots, you may actually be able to create a wireless mesh network in the pipe. Wireless doesn't travel underground, but it does in a pipe atleast a some distance. Bends are tricky, but reflections can be useful for that
@@RedRyan I work in the mining industry. The amount of beating this stuff would be taking drilling into rock all day would just end with more issues. Like what happens when a robot gets legit stuck in the pipe? A dumb workhorse can take that beating because everything is massive.
@@pin65371 The robots are likely powered by wire, so in most cases you can just yank it out. There could be edge cases where they are trapped against something. I think the benefit of using swarms of smaller robots is that there is no maintenance period. The cost should be low enough that they can be easily replaced instead of refurbished.
Given they can have multiple in a single pipe and they can cross each other I don’t think they can be powered by wire. I’d imagine a likely rescue scenario involves a functional robot shunting a dead robot to the end of the tunnel.
First I want to see those robots drilling a 10 km tunnel through granite and really difficult geology before even consider this a serious idea. I have worked in tunnels and as a foreman and a blaster who has worked in construction for almost 15 years I’m very skeptical.
Engineer here : I want to see 2 of these robots be proof-tested to be able to cross each other for 1000 runs. (And even then I doubt it would be faster or cheaper than TBM).
I think you're a bit overqualified to be skeptical of this nonsense lol.
This feels like one of those things that should be tested in a real world situation before the investors lose billions to stupidity
So the current state of the project?
Thousands of robots means thousands of potential breaking points. What if there's a water leak or too hard rocks? How would you recover a faulty robot from a bore spanning literal kilometers? What if the drill or injectors get stuck? Will the facility need expensive maintenance workers and repairmen? This might be half the cost but will take twice as much time during it's early real world trials.
Good points, but, counterpoint: It's a HYPER tunnel. QED.
Agreed, looks cool but super impractical if anything gets jammed.
Specialy because you also need, filling and charging stations.
The robots need maintainance, new drill, hardening liquid, and batterys.
Also there will be debry in the pipes, a small rock and one robot get wedged up blocking the hole pipe, good luck recovering it.
@@jonasstahl9826 o
The concept of swarm robots only makes sense if the robots can repair itself and make new robots.
Not to be a downer, but this basically splits the operation of a TBM into two unnecessarily complicated parts. Instead of a simple single drilling element you have multiple points of failure robot swarm. Also making the structural lining of the tunnel "custom to the geology" is a terrible idea as this will make maintenance with standardized components impossible (unlike replacing a standardized concrete segment placed by a TBM)
A lot of people take "innovation" to be "adding extra constraints and driving up costs for no apparent reason".
"simple single drilling element" this is the misunderstanding. Large tunnel boring machines are the complete opposite of simple and easy. They are massively complex and hard to work with. Look up any documentary on how the machines work and you will get the idea. Conversely small pipes are easy to work with and build, as are small size robots. Theoretically if they put enough development into the concept it would be substantially easier and cheaper of a method.
@@johnjingleheimersmith9259 A boring machines act as a single design unit. Your phone is complex piece of equipment but its simple to use, because all fucntions are integrated.
Anyway the problem with tunneling is rarely the speed at which you can drill. Its the speed of logistics, removing material and bringing in material. A tunnel also need a LOT more finishing work than show in the video.
This idea MAY be useful for some underground structure. When pipes need to be drilled for a limited distance (100m?) it may work out. Nowadys this is done by overlapping drilled concrete pillars. Could be faster if less drilling is required and material injected inbetween. Just MAYBE.
Remember the golden rules of innovation: Ideas are cheap, execution matters. The worst enemy of a good idea is a bad idea that has support by "smart" people (eats up all the resources and frustrates the people who can really execute but are forced to follow bad ideas.).
@@michaelrenper796 "A boring machines act as a single design unit. Your phone is complex piece of equipment but its simple to use, because all functions are integrated."
A boring machine, actually has many exposed segments. Yes they interact together but how is this different than these robots? I'm not sure I see what the supposed argument of difference you are proposing is here.
"Anyway the problem with tunneling is rarely the speed at which you can drill. Its the speed of logistics, removing material and bringing in material."
Who said anything about speed? This concept theoretically requires far less logistics and the rest is automated. The size and complexity of assembling and maintenance of tunnel boring machines is the biggest logistical challenge for them. Movement of material is addressed through similar automation by bots as well. They have the same issues minus the transport and maintenance of large components.
"A tunnel also need a LOT more finishing work than show in the video."
How is this any different? Large boring requires the same things.
"This idea MAY be useful for some underground structure. When pipes need to be drilled for a limited distance (100m?) it may work out. "
It's far easier to drill small pipe diameters far greater distances than large diameter tunnels. See: Kola Superdeep Borehole
"Nowadys this is done by overlapping drilled concrete pillars. Could be faster if less drilling is required and material injected inbetween. Just MAYBE."
What are you even talking about? No it isn't. Even with boring machines they use prefab sections of tunnel in place behind the borehead.
"Remember the golden rules of innovation: Ideas are cheap, execution matters. The worst enemy of a good idea is a bad idea that has support by "smart" people (eats up all the resources and frustrates the people who can really execute but are forced to follow bad ideas.)."
Who said execution doesn't matter? This whole thing has been about the concept feasibility. Of course people have to execute well. Honestly it just feels like you are preaching obvious truisms as if they are deeply insightful, on a topic that requires actual technical knowledge about drilling and tunnel structural engineering. I'm skeptical about any new technology, but this really doesn't seem that far outfield and the challenges not technically that complex. The hardest part will be manufacture and design of the robots.
@@johnjingleheimersmith9259 thank you John for being so insightful. I appreciate it when people and TH-cam comments actually take the time to think about these things and form good replies
sounds like something that minecraft redstone masterminds would make 🤣
*Cough Cough, Mumbo Jumbo*
@@jn9475 nah, more an ilmango thing
@@savannahmavy7064 Ilmango probably will build something that is much more complicated than this.
Have made* probably 🤭
As the population ages, all of the engineers will have known redstone
This is a interesting project but I do worry that the composite idea of injecting material into rock could be problematic
The use of the “digital twin” is interesting but scares me a little because most sane people would call that a blueprint or user interface
These red flags don’t seem to bad but I’ve noticed companies often use metaversal language to seem smart
I think most people would just call it a 'model.' That's all it is. You're right about business buzzword bingo though.
“In a way that’s far from boring” HAHAHAHAHAHA
Far from boring...
That was too good
Was looking for this comment
Looks problematic, after working on construction 3D printing for many years I know that concepts are easy. Small demo’s are hard, but scaling up to compete against real tech and complying with all the codes. That is truly difficult. Good luck, I hope it works
I can understand it's an interesting possibility for enlarging existing tunnels. One can build the new tunnel around it while the old is still open, shortening the closedown.
Imagine if this tech was there to maintain the L-train tunnel in NYC 6 years ago..
"far from boring" I see what u did here ;)
You're welcome
I have some doubts about the feasibility of this plan, especially for large projects. One concern is the need to dig tunnels for the robots' pipes. Will the robots be powered by batteries or some other source of energy? Another issue is the mention of reintroducing drills to disrupt the soil and clear out the tunnel. This seems like a significant task that warrants more attention and detail. It is likely that the majority of the "heavy lifting" will take place during this phase.
"... and it actually works."
Pretty big asterisk there: If you want to build a tunnel through a pile of dirt and not through any place where you actually would need a tunnel...
It's good to so some major innovation in this space. The potential time savings are just huge!
You've been drinking the "Kool-Aid" again!🤣😂🤣
Could you also cover that millimeter wave boring/tunneling device that was recently developed?
Yess! Also in the context of geothermal energy!
I wonder how fast that technology can be built out, I mean it's been in science fiction for a long time and now we know it's definitely possible it would be so amazing to see that kind of thing in person
Boring only. The truly staggering energy requirements mean it's only suitable for narrow holes - the hope is that it'll make geothermal energy more accessible. Faster to drill if you never have to change the bit.
@@vylbird8014 yeah they are going to use some fraction of the total lifetime energy output from a geothermal plant in making the hole using it. Still worth it assuming the geothermal plant gets up and running. Would be a nice alternative to coal mining for investing energy to harvest energy from the ground. Most renewables are actually net energy consumers. No wind turbines has ever made back the energy used to produce it.
When they have to show their product in 3D renderings, and a single experimental demonstration out of loose sand, it means it's not ready for prime time.
At the moment, "hyperTunnel" is more accurately described as "Hype or Tunnel?"...
More Musk-like "Kool-Aid" ideas!
@@pauldarbishire7226 The saddest part though is not that random people are taken in by such things, it's that the lapdog media are so eager to basically provide free "advertising" for them and typically without the slightest hint of skepticism or critical thinking.
They discuss all of those steps of robots, filling up the gaps, concrete injection, autonomous material removal... but the most essential step of getting those boreholes all parallel to each other, following the same geometry is the hardest one. As soon as you meet a large bolter underneath, or a harder material, or gound water, or cavities, or simply not being to generate enough thrust force with such a tiny drilling device. That's what is the most interesting. I've been surveying tunnels since a decade and those tiny machines are always a pain in the butt!
Though, I should admit, I love this creative approach here! :)
How about the unexpected things happening underground? Can robot detect those and stop their work halfway waiting for human's supervision?
Maybe the robots wont be able to detect them, like unintentionally discovering an oil or natural gas pocket, but this will be safer than sending the humans inside to probably die in a cave in or asphixation
@@MainMite06 "natural gas pocket" That`s what we call a blast
I think this system will work great in small complex projects where structural stability is the biggest concern. tube tunnels, pedestrian underpasses, underground stations, basements. those sorts of things. but there is a limit to how many of those robots can travel up and down a single one of those tubes. even if they can pass each other, the air pressure and even minor mistakes in trajectory will severely inhibit save speeds and passing rates. ontop of that the number of points of failure in this system is gigantic. if they lose signal with one of the drones somewhere in the pipe they have to shut down the whole pipe and carefully remove every single one until they can tow the broken one out of the way. which will than be expensive to repair due to its compact size and shape.
Great system to use in addition to what we already have but in no way do I think its going to replace tunneling as we know it. it might just open up new envelopes where tunnels can be made that previously couldnt.
I don't think it would be that bad - all the other bots could leave on their own, and a specialized towing bot could extract the faulty one. Shouldn't be too difficult.
@@piisfun I'd expect them to be fully autonomous and not require outside communication to do their job. Whenever they leave the tube to restock on materials / recharge they can get new commands. No need for constant communication with modern tech
“This is how you built a tunnel that’s far from boring” I love you man
What happens when any of those robots fail (general malfunction, drill busted and stuck, material inside pipe preventing proper movement) and get stuck deep inside one of the pipes?
what happens when the video contains no evidence of anything?
i was wondering about this too, the massive advantage that a large tunnel bore has is that the only point of failure is itself, one point of failure that can be easily repaired, a swarm of robots would be thousands of individual points of failure which could end catastrophically considering just the sheer number. either a failure with movement or more worrying a failure with properly creating the integral structure that would keep the tunnel from collapsing
Worst case would be a robot becoming entirely non-functional, blocking a pipe (they can pass each other only when both are functioning). So they definitely need a way to recover, even forcefully, any robots that suffer a defect, as losing an entire pipe is likely going to screw with the project's integrity.
@@Alblaka Doesn't see like a significant challenge really. You just feed a cable down the pipe that can grab the stuck bot then yank it out. Something plumbers do every day.
@@johnjingleheimersmith9259 "down" a horizontal shaft spanning kilometers. That is not something that Plumbers do every day.
I hope don't get bored
Nice. Want a job writing scripts?
I found that netherite pickaxes with efficiency V works well
No this isn't going to take over tunnelling. It's a solution in search of a problem. This is like the circular runway of tunnelling.
These robots are installing a single layer of "composite material" as the only lining. Unfortunately that's not how tunnels are actually built.
Firstly, we use concrete because its cheap and meshes perfectly with rebar. Composite materials are not cheap, they drive up the price and generally they have undesirable properties around expansion, temperature or other funky behaviours. Concrete is really good in compression, and steel is really good in tension, unless this material is isotropic then it will need rebar and there's no practical way to install rebar using this method.
Secondly, when digging a tunnel we install a primary layer of spray concrete (shotcrete) after excavating, this layer of shotcrete is strong enough for short term construction work. Through the shotcrete we can install additional supports such as rockbolts (not sure how these robots could even install these). Other liners and membranes can be installed such as void forma to stop water entering the tunnel. Unless this composite is waterproof, how are you going to install a membrane with these robots?
Thirdly, when excavating we actually want the ground to converge a little bit, especially in the Sydney region where we have super high in-situ stresses, this relaxation means less force on the tunnel. You can't do that with this.
What happens if a robot breaks down and the tunnel is now blocked? What happens if you encounter an unexpected geological condition? Little drill arms, why not just make one big drill that is less likely to break?
There's so many reasons why this won't take over tunnelling and there's a reason there's so many caveats at 6:45.
Rather than huge tunnels, there may be an untapped market in having lots of small tunnels for small robots. These small tunnels can form a regional delivery network that can shuttle around small goods very quickly, but more importantly, at low cost. Heck, they could probably build some underground complex that never actually gets visited by humans, but it effectively works as a completely automated warehouse.
I like how your video is just made of random stock footage, instead of just about robots building a tunnel
Tunneling with swarm robotics will require a power source other than batteries. The energy requirements for tunneling are immense. They will need to be powered by an attached wire, or not be electrically driven.
There's absolutely no way this would ever work. Inserting concrete around the existing dirt? That's not how concrete works. You have to remove that dirt and then insert the concrete, you don't mix it in with it. It's going to make it brittle and crumble as soon as you apply pressure. You would have to develop a new type of concrete, that can integrate the specific type of soil found around the tunnel you're creating. And that's easier said than done considering soil varies from foot to foot. It's good to think outside the box but this will never be viable. Boring machines are the fastest machines we have to make tunnels.
Here's my concern:
Sooner or later, a robot WILL jam inside its tube. Not might, will. There needs to be a way to clear these jams, which could very easily mean un-wedging a robot (or disassembling it in-place) and potentially replacing the pipe segment it's in, kilometers deep. Which means (at minimum) an additional robot design, with disassembly and pulling tools. And a further robot design with the ability to to cut the pipe it's in and install new walls.
TBM's are big enough for humans to access and service the machine. These robots, are not.
One problem, as someone who works in tunnels (who even recognised the Hinkley Point C footage as I've been in that tunnel so many times) the part that takes the longest is the actual drilling which you would have noticed they kind of skipped over. Also Grouting (the process of pumping concrete into the ground) isn't perfect and goes wherever the easiest path is and is a bit more complicated and random/choatic then how it is presented in the video. Another point is that grouting is not structural we use it more as an added protective layer and to also reduce water ingress. I love seeing innovative in the industry however I admit I have doubts.
This is cool and all, but imagine having to put 30 pipes in perfect radial symmetry along a 1km tunnel. To drill the holes and lay those pipes you need...
A iddy bitty TBM. Or 30 of them.
I have some doubts about the feasibility of drilling several precise high aspect ratio holes to stuff the pipes into
I notice you overlooked that modern TBMs do the same thing by making the tunnel as they dig these days.
Yeah they work. On soil. Look at that test section. Its 2 plywood walls with just dirt poured in. This shows nothing. You could have dug that hole without support.
Tomorrow's Build must be monitoring Thunderf00t's channel nervously since releasing this one.
there's quite a bit of difference between the fancy 3D rendering, gibberish talking and the actual results in real world:
that's what we call marketing
Good to see competition in this space making is less Boring. Low costs could open huge demand.
This is going to be so useful when the surface is a glowing radioactive wasteland
Okay, and how do you get the pipes in, which is used by the robots? Especially if the tunnel is supposed to be very long and may have some curves to it.
as we rise in population and dwindle the resources we have... its so great to see companies find ways to put people out ov work and waste more materials while bragging about thier successes.
we never got rid ov kings we just changed the name and celebrate progress.
I'll be honest, I am a bit sceptical of the durability of a structure being built this method.
Peak 15?! The swarm test crew must be Mass Effect fans. 😂
Could've called the robots a "collector swarm"
Would like Adamsomething or Thunderfoot to take a Look at this :D
The way these robots work together to construct a tunnel astounds me! This film demonstrates great ingenuity and efficiency.
Stunning idea. Good luck to the company and people behind it!
And where is small robot which will digs tunnels for robots which was on that animation? How will they move material which they dug?
THIS IS SO COOL! My favorite thing is the safety aspect… let’s keep humans out of danger as often as possible.
if that boring line wasnt a textbook how it's made-opener then i dont know what is
I love it when people think outside the box and try new ways of doing old things.
Why do I feel like this is gonna perform like that idea of replacing trains with individual electric RC vehicles to pull single containers ?
This looks really exciting for the future of tunnels. I hope this doesn't go the same way as "solar road" and turns into a practical reality. Thanks for sharing as always Fred and your team.
Spoiler alert, it will. Along with the likes of hyperloop. Hell, we may not even get self-driving cars at this rate.
@@Dysiode The issue with "solar roads" was that it was a stupid idea from the beginning. Building a solar panel tough enough to drive on is a genuinely bad idea when you could just use existing pavement technology (which is VERY cheap and easy to repair), and then build massively more efficient conventional solar panels elsewhere. And the "roads make up X amount of surface area which would generate a ton of energy if converted to solar panels" argument made no sense either, when roofs make up significantly more surface area and actually *would* make sense to put solar panels on.
The Tesla Loop and Hyperloop concepts are just dumber, more complex, worse versions of a thing that already exists: trains (subways and high speed rail, respectively). Every problem they solve could be solved better by technology that already exists. They only innovation they presented was the ability to grift starry eyed tech investors out of their money; you can't get a lanyard dork excited about building a boring old subway, but tell them Elon Musk wants put a bunch of battery powered cars in a tunnel and they'll be lining up to light their money on fire.
And yes, the same issue exists with self driving cars. They do make sense in a small number of situations (maybe long haul trucking on specific interstate routes, moving product around a large factory or warehouse complex, mining, or *maybe* certain military applications), but personal vehicles are definitely not one of them.
Even ignoring the problems with getting the tech working and getting people to trust it (which is no small hurdle), what problem does a self driving car solve exactly? Traffic? Having a bunch of empty cars driving themselves around to pick people up and drop them off with make traffic *worse*, not better. The only way they'd reduce traffic is if you had large autonomous cars running set routes, picking up multiple people per trip. Thing is, that exists; they're called busses.
Much has been made about platooning groups of self driving cars together to enable greater density on freeways without causing traffic, but there are a LOT of problems with that approach. First of all, it only solves traffic if *all* cars on a given road are autonomous. Otherwise the autonomous cars would have to merge through lines of slow-moving, non-autonomous traffic to get on and off, and that would completely negate the purpose. You'd need special roads just for autonomous cars, because there's no way you'd get 100% adoption.
Secondly, it only works if all of the cars are extremely reliable and well-maintained. You could probably make the system robust enough to handle most mechanical failures or inclement without causing a massive pileup, but a disabled car in a platooned system would be a huge traffic problem. And would you feel comfortable with someone's janky tweaker-mobile with 4 mismatched, bald-ass tires and a rebuilt title of questionable quality screaming along 6" from your bumper at 120mph? Because I wouldn't.
You may be thinking "these problems are all solvable," and you'd be right; there are ways to deal with all of this. But by the time you move autonomous cars off on to their own roads for long distance travel, electronically couple them together with other cars, and create a system of standardized maintenance and inspections, you know what you've created? Trains. That's just much more complex, stupider train.
Just like the Hyperloop and the Tesla Loop, self driving cars are a gadetbahn; they take something that already exists, and creates a "high tech" version which is less efficient, more expensive, and worse. The point of these isn't to improve transportation; the point is to make money, either by bilking gullible investors and government agencies, or by trying to kill something which would be harmful to the business model of the people developing the tech. A Loop or a fleet of platooning self driving cars aren't better than trains, but they do let car companies continue making money while pretending to solve a problem.
What happens when loose grit builds up in the small pipes that the robots use and they get jammed? Is there a preventative measure to prevent jam ups?
This would be cost-effective as compared to Tunnel Boring machine. However, time will only tell how efficient robots are in tunnel construction in the future.
If nothing gets in the way (and this always happens), the idea can be developed even further into better technologies that barely resemble this in a few years. There are dozens of ways a swarm of robots can dig a tunnel.
@Moth Moniker Underground city are a terrible idea, safety and health isseus, not even talking about the menthal problems that people will get
I think we should find a medium point somewhere between these two extremes. Make a few larger machines of this type instead of a huge quantity of smaller ones.
That would reduce the number of points of failure, and if the robots were slightly larger more features could feasibly be put into them that increase their effectiveness.
I also think that two problems that would come up can be solved by using more medium sized versions of these robots:
If one gets stuck, a larger version of these things could be made so that if it gets stuck it can contract to smaller than the pipe diameter and be retrieved by essentially a long stick and pulled out of the pipe. If foreign material clogs the pipe blocking its access, a larger less swarmy version of these could have a rudimentary borehead and recreate a smaller scale version of conventional tunnel making by boring through the blockage in its pipe so it can continue. Larger versions could also have larger tanks of the expanding concrete compound meaning less back and forth to get the actual cavities it makes filled with the compound.
Very excited for the prospect of swarms of robots on construction jobsites. That system architecture will prove valuable for all sorts of environments. Hoping Hypertunnel can pull off scaling their capabilities.
Keep your hearts warm and help those in need
The pun at the very end of the intro was so subtle I almost missed it... 'far from boring'......
You got my vote for pun of the year.
FAR FROM BORING!!! HYPE
This idea of mini boring pipes is interesting. We should try to scale that up
Far from boring....lmao that joke was genius. I see what u did there.
Having thousands of robots that have to be charged seems like a logistical nightmare... What are the benefits over a conventional boring machine?
Probably the size factor. Conventional boring machines are absolutely gargantuan and require cranes, oversized load transport, massive custom parts, so many parts in general I believe I heard it has more than a space shuttle, and the challenges of maintaining the behemoths due to wear and tear. Not to mention the massive amounts of crew you still need to make it all work. Turns into lots of $$$. If you can make the little guys standardized and easy to produce/replace/maintain then theoretically it could be a lot cheaper. Anything big in size the price goes up by a disproportionate amount due to tooling and space requirements during manufacture, etc. Cheaper to make 2 mini fire engines vs one full size large fire engine for instance. Just look at how much a standard 16in pipe wrench costs vs the extra large kind that are 3 ft large.
Did I miss the word "rebar", or did they forget about it?
First of all - stop promoting this shady company. They are a shady company and their sponsorship makes you a disservice.
Second of all - what part about this robots makes tunnel boring easier?
From the footage shown it's still necessary to bore hundreds of smaller tunnels to insert the initial pipes for the robots. In no way it can be easier to achieve on a scale of kilometer-long tunnels. Then they are going very quick over the part where the outer structure is completed and all that's left to do is remove the soil in the middle. But it's the same tunnel boring process, it's still necessary to drill the center of the tunnel and remove the soil somehow.
So making hundreds of smaller tunnels is not easier than making a single big one if in the end all of space between said smaller tunnels needs to excavated just the same.
Yeah, doesn’t make much sense to me either. In excavation and mining operations, having one big machine is usually more efficient than having many small machines.
We've pretty much mastered small pipe drilling. It's when you go big when it gets really challenging. Small pipes are nbd. In fact you could probably drill your own water well pipe yourself using a corded homeowner drill and PVC pipe segments many dozens of feet down. Rocks are about the hardest (haha) part of the process and we've got tons of specialized drill bits and drilling techniques to solve for that. Turning is actually pretty easy and they do it all the time using special flexing drill heads. Just think about how much work and tech has been developed into drilling for oil and other stuff. small pipes are easy, but the problems involved when you scale up for big holes grow exponential due to the need for getting rid of more and more material. It's a math problem really if you realize the volume of material for a 2 in pipe vs a 4 in is basically squaring the radius. So literally exponential. Look at the deepest boreholes we've ever dug and how deep they go then look at the actual size in diameter of the holes.... they're very small and so are the drilling machines used to dig them, relatively. To sum up my long screed, small pipes are incredibly easy for us these days, the big pipes are wayyyy more difficult. I'm not saying this company is legit, but the theory of what they're doing seems a lot less complicated than large scale boring machines.
@@johnjingleheimersmith9259 great reply, thank you the insight. I still don't understand how drilling hundreds of smaller tunnels that almost take the whole diameter of the bigger tunnel can be done faster than a conventional method.
@@screwdriver1337 Well have you ever tried drilling a large hole into something like wood or concrete? If you have then you know it's a lot harder than if you drill a tiny pilot hole first, then it's worlds easier. Bigger holes you might even step up another pilot hole drill bit size to make it even easier. The bigger you go the more material and more torque you need to drill due to the increase force of all the material you need to move.
Hopefully this will make metros in smaller cities more economically viable
Wait until Quaise -- or a similar company - figures out they can use gyrotrons to dig tunels by literally vaporizing the rock.
Every few months, you make wonderful news stories, just great stuff! I sometimes stare at my screen in amazement. Very good stuff!
Bro the thumbnail.
POV: You witness robots breaching a bunker full of survivors
We need a few of these tunnels through the Sierra Nevada range especially during the Winter. Would increase tourism to places too remote and cut off due to the extreme driving conditions half of the year. Once I was stopped by Italian tourists how they could get to Nevada as it was well into Fall and the mountain passes were closed and my reply was to drive back to Los Angeles as at that time of year the only other way to get across would be I-80 which isn't exactly where you want to be driving around in the winter unless you have experience.
In the animation, it looks like the length of the tunnel is limited to the length of the drill and the pipe. So maybe it could be a good idea for short tunnels like maybe 100 meters or less.
I am a rich bald man who has been waiting for literally decades to become a Lex Luther style supervillain. Everyday my dream looks closer and closer, thank you for the video I look forward to more updates.
The 'prototype' looks like it was done in soft material. So it could have also been done by a 'swarm' of six year olds with shovels.
Obviously there will be more than one model of robot. 1 for drilling the holes, 1 for inserting the filler, 1 for extracting the material from the holes , 1 for transporting the material, 1 for changing the batteries on the more internal robots, 1 for cleaning the micro hole of waste, 1 for servicing the internal robots, 1 for reducing heat in the hole if necessary, 1 for dealing with water inflowing. etc. And I guess they will all work with a mesh net, so they can relay information and instructions. Sure this is going to take a while to become reality, but the improvements are all incremental.
0:03 - I actually expected the airplane to be mentioned as well considering the recent stunt in Austria
Designing it is one thing, putting it into practice is another. By the time something like this comes to fruition it may even well be obsolete
this looks like a mechanical engineers nightmare. 5000-10000 robots means the points of failure scale tremendously. little bits of grit in all those moving parts will cause failures. they will have to address what happens when there are multiple mechanical failures deep in a pipe that blocks other robots from passing in the pipe. Also, the tracking problem on what has been done and what needs to be done will have huge scaling issues. Check out Stuff Made Here's automated puzzle assembler for reference on the types of problems that will need to be solved.
Then you hire a lot of guys with jackhammers😃
This is absolutely amazing.
I have seen videos of swarms of drones building walls and other structures, and now this is swarms of robots digging tunnels...
Seems to me, that the future is going to involve SWARMS of drones and droids in order to get our stuff done.
Fantastic.
I guess its swarms of Terminators that will be the end of us then? Sweet!
How will they drill the holes accurately for kilometers, including any needed bends? How will they then fit the pipes in those holes over kilometers?
The video made it sound so simple, but that only works with soft soil or soft ground.
What happens if you are dealing with hard ones?
And depending area, there could be water leakage issues...you can't just build the tunnel first without dealing with those water leaking areas.
This method isn't suited for most kinds of digging...maybe good for digging a little heel only.
Drilling part was glanced over like it's something obvious, but that's like one of the big problems right?
Maybe. There is some pretty clever stuff going on with drilling holes like that, including curved holes. That would be a video by itself. Drilling several and keeping them parallel would be more challenging, but they can easily add in some tolerance for that.
Not really. We've pretty much mastered small pipe drilling. It's when you go big when it gets really challenging. Small pipes are nbd. In fact you could probably drill your own water well pipe yourself using a corded homeowner drill and PVC pipe segments many dozens of feet down. Rocks are about the hardest (haha) part of the process and we've got tons of specialized drill bits and drilling techniques to solve for that. Turning is actually pretty easy and they do it all the time using special flexing drill heads. Just think about how much work and tech has been developed into drilling for oil and other stuff. small pipes are easy, but the problems involved when you scale up for big holes grow exponential due to the need for getting rid of more and more material. It's a math problem really if you realize the volume of material for a 2 in pipe vs a 4 in is basically squaring the radius. So literally exponential. Look at the deepest boreholes we've ever dug and how deep they go then look at the actual size in diameter of the holes.... they're very small and so are the drilling machines used to dig them, relatively. To sum up my long screed, small pipes are incredibly easy for us these days, the big pipes are wayyyy more difficult.
I don't know what inspired the Thunderball 'secret lair' reference but it did make me giggle.
Old technology: use a tunnel boring machine to remove the dirt, and build the walls out as you do.
New technology: Build the walls, and *then* use a tunnel boring machine to remove the dirt.
Funny how the 'slow digging machine going through and removing the dirt' part that they were bashing on got glossed over in the tech demo cgi.
Really cool idea, I hope it could work well in the future!
I can dig it!
Nice 👌
Biggest issue I see is the small drones drills they can get through compact dirt, but what about stone and the various kinds and conditions, how do they deal with collapses in the areas they are trying to hollow, exc.
This seems straight out of a video game! Like how I make my underwater Minecraft base by constructing the outer frame, then draining the inside
There are a lot of holes in this concept
8:27 i like how they used highway signs from two different states and didn't even bother to match the exit number
"This is how you dig a tunnel in a way that is far from boring." I see what you did there. Lol
video starts at 3:40
i need a swarm of robots to build my evil lair.
i also need an access tunnel just wide enough for a cart to get through and get stuck turning around.
"Just emptying out the tunnel" after putting the liner in place is a bit of a simplification. That maybe works with loose soil, not with granite
Watching this amazing video, I exclaimed "WHUT" out loud several times.
It's an interesting idea, but the title is quite misleading. The swarm of robots isn't really the thing that "built this tunnel". The swarm of robots stabilized the soil that the tunnel was built in, but they still needed a boring machine (5:49) to come in afterward and make the main passageway.
I'm not trying to say the robots didnt serve their purpose. Collapse during tunnel drilling is one of the most dangerous parts of drilling a tunnel. So if you had a way to stabilize bad spots before you send in the half-billion dollar TBM, it would definitely be useful. It's a great tool to add to the arsenal, but it's not the tunnel-building revolution it's presented as here.