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NETWORK / 28 / OCTOBER 2018 INNOVATION T his summer as Lon- doners basked in record temperatures a robotic revolu- tion was underway beneath some of the capital's busiest streets. Unbeknown to the bustling crowds in The Strand and Oxford Street ingenious robots – equipped with state-of-the-art technology - were hard at work beneath their feet. As the 21st century pro - gresses robots – once the preserve of sci-fi novels, comic books, TV shows and movies – are increasingly becoming a part of everyday life and the utility sector is no different. However, whereas robots o„en pose an existential threat to humanity in many a Hol - lywood sci-fi blockbuster, the robots that we at Cadent have been working with are designed to benefit mankind. The robot in question, CISBOT, was developed by New York based ULC Robotics some years ago. The company has also branched out into the UK, with an office in Dartford, Kent. Along with SGN, our prede - cessor company National Grid, successfully trialled robots in London back in the early 2010s. ULC Robotics and their 'Gas- Bots' have been gaining increas - ing attention on the other side of the Atlantic, where they have been used to deal with problems including flooded pipelines and gas leaks in New York and Boston. This summer however we've used the robots on their highest profile jobs to date in the UK, where we've been using them to give a new lease of life to ageing gas pipes, running beneath two The rise of the machines Continuing our series of exclusive contributions from Cadent, James Harrison - head of operations for London – updates Network readers on the role 'Gas-Bots' are playing in repairing gas pipes. of London's busiest locations – The Strand and Oxford Street. A„er decades in service the joints on the gas mains beneath these busy roads were in need of renewal to help maintain safe and reliable gas supplies and reduce the risk of disruptive gas escapes. Traditional methods would have required engineers to dig a series of large excavations to manually replace the joints. The work would also have required gas to be switched off on the section of pipe being worked on, meaning we may have had to temporarily switch off people's gas supplies while doing the work. The job would also have taken months to complete. All of this would have incurred major expense and caused significant disruption to the public, something which is contentious in all locations, let alone in two of the capital's and injects a special anaerobic sealant, which has a 50-year lifespan. The beauty of CISBOT is that it needs such a small amount of above ground space to operate. Literally all we need is the small excavation with space around it for the operations truck and a small works compound. This is great for local resi - dents and businesses as they can go about their daily routine with far less disruption and fewer road closures than would be experienced if we used tradi - tional repair, replacement and rehabilitation methods. Fewer excavations also help us to keep permit, engineer- ing and construction costs to a minimum. Though it's not currently suitable for every kind of job we do want to try and use CISBOT more and more in the future. In the future we could see busiest thoroughfares. CISBOT has enabled us to deliver the work in weeks rather than months and with fewer and smaller excavations. We were also able to keep the gas mains live while doing our work. Using CISBOT also helped us to keep costs down. How does CISBOT work? CISBOT does away with the need for traditional large-scale excavations in roads and pave- ments as it needs only a small excavation to access a 500m section of pipeline and the 100 joints which that contains. Once the excavation has been prepared the robot enters the gas mains by the means of a special insertion tube. Piloted by a ULC Robotics team of highly trained operators via a computer controlled sys - tem in an above ground vehicle, CISBOT travels to each joint CISBOT going through a gas pipe.