A rigid but foldable indoor airship aerial system for cave exploration

29 pointsposted 9 hours ago
by PaulHoule
(arxiv.org)

22 Comments

ksymph

an hour ago

I asked my friend who is in the cave search and rescue squad their thoughts, to paraphrase:

It's cool, but they don't see what problem it solves.

krisoft

4 hours ago

But like... why? What does an indoor airship get us which we couldn't do before "for cave exploration"? It sounds like they needed to map out the cave in detail before they could even design the airship. So there aren't even any pretence of "exploration". The airship is not big enough to carry people, nor does it have manipulators to take samples.

That leaves us with the "an artistic manifestation". Which is cool. It is a neat art project I guess. But then that is not "cave exploration". It is a temporary inflatable art installation inside a cave.

Am I missing something here?

m4rtink

3 hours ago

Caves are dark, wet, slippery and might not even contain breathable atmosphere in some cases & could get flooded in minutes, with deadly results.

Having a foldable flying drone you could use to scout for you could help a lot when exploring caves.

As for the cave scanning - I think that is mainly so they can set their design constraints & later the bot can take over, possibly including SLAM[0]. There are already designs like that that have been tested in unexplored flooded caves[1].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simultaneous_localization_and_... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEPTHX

krisoft

2 hours ago

> Having a foldable flying drone you could use to scout for you could help a lot when exploring caves.

I agree with that. But is this the right form for it? Airships are bulky. Caves are obstructed. A smaller flying drone, like some form of a multicopter would be my choice if I want to maximise the chances that it fits the cave.

lesuorac

an hour ago

> Thanks to their long-flight endurance, they are suited for long-term missions.

How long can your drone stay in the air?

Retric

33 minutes ago

They cap out at several hours for gas powered drones or ~1h of flying time for batteries.

But it’s unlikely for you to actually need endurance because you’re not getting signal that far through a cave without repeaters or a long cable. A bigger deal is being able to go underwater or fit through tiny openings.

zeroping

an hour ago

Many caves are not particularly wet , slippery, or prone to flooding. Only a few have issues with a lack of airflow. I understand the interest in robotic exploration for some specifically risky caves, but I don't like this generalization that implies all caves are too dangerous for humans to enter.

YeGoblynQueenne

2 hours ago

That's a cool idea but I don't think it's er gonna fly. They should have gone for a flexible craft with a long, articulated body - like a snake. All those long, winding passages. The upright balloon can pass through them, but it can't deal with long _and_ low passages. A snake-like one could.

fasa99

an hour ago

So the snak character build is +5 for narrow entries but is nerfed when the exit is a hole in the ceiling of a larger cavern, an area where the ballon is +8. Ultimately what we need is a hybrid build between ballon and snak, an inflatable snak ballon if you will, should be +3 on both. The second win is that snak motility can be driven by controlled focal inflation/deflation cycles.

idlephysicist

43 minutes ago

Fair play to them, it's a detailed paper. But I'm not sure that this would have much practicality in other caves. The terrain just changes too quickly (most of the time).

gertrunde

6 hours ago

I'm not normally a big fan of facebook etc... but there are a selection of photographs of this device here:

https://www.facebook.com/nxigestatio/

notjulianjaynes

5 hours ago

Yes, I'm sure this article is interesting but only photos of this strange device will satisfy me. Thanks.

Edit: concurring with the person complaining about Facebook which I cannot access

ricc

6 hours ago

I thought it was going to be made of cloth that stiffens when current passes through it... :)