where physics and life collide
Posts tagged monorail
Where are my robot hands?
11 year ago
Earlier we discussed the LHC’s current robot monorail, little TIM, but 30 years ago CERN had far loftier goals and they were all about getting grabby. What follows are some photos grudgingly requinquished by CERN’s document server. The first one is my favorite, because this fellow is clearly living the 1981 dream.
Ever wish you could just shoot your arms through an iron-impregnated concrete wall and shake some sense into that radioactive pressure vessel on the other side? In 1981 you could.
The robot arms were eventually upgraded and attached to both monorails and trucks tethered by umbilical cord. “MANTIS’ as it was known, has more photos in CDS. You can also read more at “MANTIS – a compact mobile remote-handling system for accelerator halls and tunnels”, “MANTIS 2 : a new long range remote vehicle and servo-master-slave manipulator for the CERN accelerator complex” and “Teleoperator evolution at CERN”.
Reading some of those documents, MANTIS sounds like a really handy guy. Maybe that is why he was eventually incorporated into the military-industrial complex; given complex reasoning skills; and, through some fortune, jolted into a zest for more than just the life of a radioactive science-slave or autonomous killing machine. CERN was the crucible in which was forged one who “is alive”, a crafty, cultured cowboy. We miss you, Johnny Five!
Left: a slave in the bowels of CERN. Right: bandanas aren't just for the human overlords anymore.
Monorails
42 years ago
This is TIM
The LHC must have received a visit from a fast talking Mr. Lanley because I just learned that they have a monorail, and it’s name is TIM! How did this slip by me until now?
TIM stands for Train Inspection Monorail, which is a hugely awkward redundancy and goes to show that no grammar will stand between a scientists and his acronym. (Unless I turn out to be hugely misinformed: does the LHC tunnel contain another train, one of such vital importance that they built a monorail to inspect it?) Someone is clearly very wedded to “TIM”. But, if this boxy ceiling crawler absolutely must play the role of nondescript schoolyard chum in the “unique” three-act play that our robot descendants will write about every last one of us, is there a reason we’re not working from Tunnel Inspection Monorail?
TIM is expected to be useful for preliminary environmental inspections before workers or emergency crews enter. It may also be used for inspecting the collimators, which become one of the most radioactive elements of the machine after running. (The collimators sweep away stray protons around the beam and so end up taking a substantial particle bombardment.) In addition, I might propose that TIM, at 30×30 cm, is also the perfect size for moving puppies.
These are puppies, in a monorail.
There is an easy-reading technical note on CDS if you crave more monorail info. No puppies are mentioned.
If you will allow a touch of free association, it’s as good a time as any to mention Flashforward, a novel by Robert Sawyer, that I have been hearing about recently though it was published back in 1999. It is set in and around CERN and centers around a cataclysmic event precipitated by the LHC. (A new TV show loosely based on the novel has been running in the US, I’ll have more to say about it in a future post.) From the science media commentary and the few excerpts I have read, it seems to take a more realistic view of CERN than Dan’s Brown stain, Angels and Demons.
But, one liberty Flashforward does take is to describe scientists traveling around the LHC via monorail. “Utter poppycock!” I would exclaim… until today. If by “scientists” Sawyer was speaking of puppies, then I think he’s on to something.
(Oh, and the book also mentions flying cars. It just might be a good read, but fuck flying cars.)
Addendum: I ran across another article on TIM, “Remotely-operated equipment for inspection, measurement and handling.”
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