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CASE 09 / Maintenance

SWARM: a concept for miniature inspection robots in engines

A proposed snake carrier would deploy and retrieve miniature crawlers to inspect surfaces beyond conventional borescope access.

Rolls-Royce · SWARM2018
Rolls-Royce SWARM artist’s impression; not an operational deployment photograph.
Rolls-Royce SWARM artist’s impression; not an operational deployment photograph.Rolls-Royce plc

Watch the video

Concept animation and related locomotion prototypes. · Rolls-Royce / University of Nottingham · 1080p source video

01 / STUDY

Mechanism and experiments

In the SWARM concept, a snake carrier delivers miniature crawlers into an engine, gathers their visual feedback and retrieves them after inspection. The official Rolls-Royce film presents both a system animation and related research on miniature-robot locomotion.

02 / CONTEXT

Test conditions and scope

Deployment and retrieval are concepts; related locomotion prototypes are not a demonstrated inspection swarm.

03 / SOURCE

Papers and primary sources

Meet the robots
Rolls-Royce / University of Nottingham
Rolls-Royce · public research report, 2019

Further reading