Economy
Drones Do the Dirty Work in a 'Self-Repairing City'
No more waiting for the government to fix that giant pothole. Soon, robots will automatically detect and repair city problems.
With today’s advanced drone technology, unmanned aircraft can do all kinds of stuff: They can make art, help preserve Peru’s historic sites, and even serve sushi.
Now engineers in England want to give drones an even bigger task: Fix an entire city. The University of Leeds recently won 4.2 million pound grant (about $6.5 million USD) from the U.K.’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council to create a national infrastructure for so-called “self-repairing cities,” where small robots will identify and repair everything from potholes to streetlights to utility pipes.