St. Petersburg City Council to decide on the RedZone as a service to assess aging infrastructure. Solo robots identified as a rapid data collection tool to inspect one-fifth of the city’s pipes, about 750,000 feet of pipe. Upon the success of the pilot, senior waters resources manager over the wastewater system Lisa Rhea, said water resources department will want to renew the contract to use the robots across the city’s sewers.
Rhea said the city had challenges with sewer overflows a few years ago, so they did a trial run with RedZone last fall and the Solo robots cover four times more ground than what the city can cover now.
“We get 1,500 to 2,500 feet a day, and they get 7,500 to 10,000 feet a day,” said John Stanton, the wastewater collections supervisor.
It takes just 10 minutes to drop off the robot and 10 minutes to pick up, significantly cutting down on the amount of time and manpower currently needed.
“I can guarantee you it’s going to do it more efficiently and more effectively. So the impact for the residents is much less because you don’t have that disruption to the traffic pattern that you would have with the trucks. If we get the inspections done quickly, then we can identify where the problems are more quickly and spend our time and our resources repairing the problems,” Rhea said.
St. Petersburg would not be the first city to use the robots underground. Rhea said Palm Harbor and Winter Garden city workers have also use the robots in the sewer systems.
