BEIJING: A group of Chinese engineers has managed to design an intelligent robotic car that can clean, repair and complete replacement work on the country’s Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST), the largest single-dish and most sensitive radio telescope in the world.
Maintaining 2,225 laser targets on a large spherical dish with a receiving area equal to almost 30 football fields is quite a gigantic challenge. The reflective surface of the telescope is made of one-millimetre-thin aluminum plates, making them unable to hold the weight of a normal adult.
Efficiency of Intelligent Robots
According to the Institute of Automation under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which also designed the robot, the newly-developed robocar can run and move in all directions and tackle replacement challenges automatically, even on a 56-degree steep slope.
The system has already been used by maintenance services of FAST, and it has remarkably improved efficiency and reduced safety risks.
Located in a naturally deep and round karst depression in Pingtung County in the Guizhou Province, southwest China, FAST initiated its formal operation in January 2020 and officially opened to the world two months later on March 31, 2021.
