Over 63 million people travel by plane in the United States every day.

Planes need to be well oiled and safe machines, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is in charge of making sure that this happens.

However, to properly inspect a plane can take several hours, which would significantly delay flights. This has led to cost cutting and unsafe inspections – a situation which has become so common, that the Department of Transportation (DoT) has launched an investigation into the FAA.

What would be the best way to ensure the safety of travelers while also doing it quickly?

Rolls-Royce believes the answer is robotic cockroaches.

One of the big problems with airplane inspections is that it requires the mechanics to crawl inside to see the machinery, which means removing a lot of things so they can access it. Rolls-Royce believes they would be able to speed up this process by instead sending in miniature robots, which were referred to as cockroaches, to do the inspecting. These robots would be armed with cameras and 3D scanners to assess the problems, and they be equipped to apply patches to attend to any needed repairs.

James Kell, technology specialist at Rolls-Royce, believes that this could speed up the inspection process from 5 hours to 5 minutes, which is a 99% speed increase.

Airflight safety is of paramount importance. By employing robots who are better able to inspect a plane than a human, we will be able to quickly ensure the safety of plane passengers.

Eric Cawley is an occasional blogger for Gary Stringham & Associates. Gary provides consulting and expert witness services in embedded systems such as robotics. Feel free to contact Gary at 208-939-6984.