Enabling low-cost water infrastructure monitoring and repair with soft-growing robots
Water cohort
Aging water and wastewater infrastructure in the U.S. leads to significant water loss, high repair costs, and catastrophic failures. Utilities struggle to balance affordability and necessary upkeep, leading to deferred maintenance and minimal monitoring. This project designed a low-cost “vine robot” capable of navigating complex, small-diameter, and pressurized pipe networks. The technology enables targeted maintenance, minimizes inspection costs, and helps regulators enforce stricter infrastructure standards without imposing high economic burdens on utilities.
Unlocking unreachable assets.
Trellis Robotics is an industrial robotics company unlocking access to hard-to-reach water infrastructure using AI-enabled, soft-growing robots. Built on a decade of Stanford research, Trellis delivers adaptive navigation and high-value inspection data in environments too narrow, hazardous, or complex for traditional tools.