Game of marbles

Over the last four years, researchers from Eindhoven University of Technology (TUE) have been working hard on sensors to explore hard-to-reach and even inaccessible environments. Together with colleagues from Aachen, Amsterdam, Groningen, Leuven, Trento and the Antea Group, they’ve been developing smart marbles, the size and shape of golf balls, that can perform all kinds of measurements while floating in a reactor vessel or passing through water mains or oil pipelines. Recently, the TUE published a feature on this EU-funded project called Phoenix, boasting all its merits.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, Ingu Solutions is deploying its Pipers: sensors, the size and shape of golf balls, that can detect and locate leaks, defects, magnetic features and restrictions in pipelines. The Calgary-based start-up is focusing on industrial chemical production, fluid dynamics laboratories, water utilities and oil and gas companies.