Bombyx (Internet Cable Robot)

2023: Product Announcement

May 22, 2023 Meta (recognized as an extremist organization; activities on the territory of the Russian Federation are prohibited) reported that its technology of robotic laying of fiber optic cables through power lines (power lines) is licensed by the Japanese company Hibot. Thus, the device entered the commercial market.

We are talking about a system called Bombyx (translated from Latin means silkworm). The robot is designed for use primarily in hard-to-reach and remote regions where there is no traditional Internet infrastructure, and its creation from scratch is not justified due to high financial costs. The Bombyx machine allows you to solve problems by laying fiber through the air - on power line supports.

Bombyx robot

In the process, Bombyx wraps a fiber optic cable around wires on power lines. In this case, all operations can be carried out under voltage, due to which the objects connected to the power line continue to receive power. Another advantage of the technology is that it allows you to organize long spans. But this requires a special fiber optic cable with Kevlar, which weighs less than 13 kg/km.

Bombyx is able to independently overcome various obstacles on the way - including pin insulators that need to be passed from above. For this, a complex combination of machine vision tools, specialized sensors, drives and a stabilization control system is used. This technical solution allows the robot to balance on power lines like a cable car.

It is expected that the use of Bombyx in commercial projects will help simplify the deployment of new large-scale fiber-optic networks, as well as reduce the cost of building Internet infrastructure, for example, in rural areas.^[1]

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