China uses intelligent robots to maintain FAST telescope

This aerial panoramic photo taken on July 26, 2023 shows China's Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) in southwest China's Guizhou Province. (Xinhua/Ou Dongqu)

BEIJING, Aug. 7 (Xinhua) -- A team of Chinese engineers have designed 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 world's largest single-dish and most sensitive radio telescope.

Maintaining 2,225 laser targets on a giant spherical dish with a receiving area equivalent to 30 football fields is quite a challenge. The telescope's reflective surface is made of one-millimeter thin aluminium plates, making them unable to bear the weight of a normal adult.

The newly-developed robocar is capable of running in all directions and fulfilling replacement tasks automatically even on a 56-degree steep slope, according to the Institute of Automation under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which designed the robot.

The system has already been used by FAST's maintenance services, and it has significantly improved the efficiency and reduced safety risks.

Located in a naturally deep and round karst depression in Pingtang County in Guizhou Province, southwest China, FAST started formal operation in January 2020 and officially opened to the world on March 31, 2021.