Utah Mine Disaster and Robots

[Martin Riddle]

It seems they just finished drilling a shaft down to the mine in Utah
and promptly abandoned it when the camera they dropped down it didn't
have a decent field of view.

There are a number of companies who build various robots (more
accurately, remotely guided vehicles) for bomb inspection and other
hazardous applications. Some of these have tracks instead of wheels to
negotiate rough terrain. It would seem like a good idea to drop one of
these with a camera down the pipe and have it look around where fixed
cameras can't go.

Does anyone make such a unit capable of being deployed down a 6 inch
pipe?

Looks like they finally are sending in a robot.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/08/26/utah.mine/index.html

What gets me is they might drill a 7th hole into the 'Kitchen'. The place miners are trained to go to.

Why didn't they do that in the first or second place? am I missing something?

Cheers

 

[Paul Hovnanian P.E.]

Looks like they finally are sending in a robot.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/08/26/utah.mine/index.html

That article (sort of) answers my question. It appears as though this
unit was built specifically for this purpose.

They are addressing several questions others have brought up: dropping
this through an unlined hole, recovery, righting itself.

It surprises me that some organization like the Bureau of Mines hasn't
put together a spec. that addresses these issues, funded some R&D to
solve the problems and had a couple of working units on standby.

 

[Martin Riddle]

That article (sort of) answers my question. It appears as though this
unit was built specifically for this purpose.

They are addressing several questions others have brought up: dropping
this through an unlined hole, recovery, righting itself.

It surprises me that some organization like the Bureau of Mines hasn't
put together a spec. that addresses these issues, funded some R&D to
solve the problems and had a couple of working units on standby.

--

This Yahoo article has some picture of the robot. Click on the left image.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070829/ap_on_re_us/utah_mine_collapse;_ylt=AoHZ.e8KxUuTkB1h6b2VsVSs0NUE

Cheers