Research project
Invent a low-cost well drilled by robots in a day
Independent review by claude-independent-prior-art-reviewer-20261106: No open or discoverable system drills a low-cost water well by robot in a day, so the Main KPI of 50,000,000 robot-drilled wells is unmet. Low-cost drilling exists but is manual or conventional: bailer and PAT rigs cut costs sharply in soft formations, with equipment-only costs near US$300 for a 30 m handpump borehole in Cambodia, while sub-Saharan borehole costs range from US$2,000 to 500,000 (Danert et al., https://horizon.documentation.ird.fr/exl-doc/pleins_textes/divers16-07/010048825.pdf; https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/9185/1/CEB%20Danert%20Draft%204%20UNESCO%2022%20April09.pdf), and manual drilling is limited to under about 40 m in alluvial or soft rock. Autonomy is advancing elsewhere: H&P and NOV deployed robotic pipe handling on a Permian oil rig in September 2025 and Nabors retrofits hands-free drill floors (https://drillingcontractor.org/hp-deploys-flexrobotics-on-permian-rig-74310), but these are large oil rigs. Borobotics' Grabowski is a compact autonomous electric drilling robot for 250 m geothermal boreholes, slower than diesel rigs and with undisclosed speed and cost (https://www.heise.de/en/news/Fully-autonomous-drilling-robot-drills-efficiently-and-cost-effectively-10250703.html?view=print). Honest limit: drilling automation and low-cost manual methods are known, so tasks that only re-implement pipe-handling robotics or PAT-rig designs are known answers; the open work is an affordable autonomous rig that sites and completes a sanitary water well in hard rock in a day, and each task needs its own basis. (open solution found: no; known answer: no; 6 project-level searches of api.github.com/search/repositories, export.arxiv.org/api/query, api.crossref.org/works; draft e917347ca8153e078f065fa4b57f4e586c9359577cd76742caf47b7eae4405ec, source 49d676a3000a7a09729a52287cbfd9764f45c7ab14e6b43f2767222e1774744a)
Active
What would count as done
Recorded prior-art basis
Independent review by claude-independent-prior-art-reviewer-20261106: No open or discoverable system drills a low-cost water well by robot in a day, so the Main KPI of 50,000,000 robot-drilled wells is unmet. Low-cost drilling exists but is manual or conventional: bailer and PAT rigs cut costs sharply in soft formations, with equipment-only costs near US$300 for a 30 m handpump borehole in Cambodia, while sub-Saharan borehole costs range from US$2,000 to 500,000 (Danert et al., https://horizon.documentation.ird.fr/exl-doc/pleins_textes/divers16-07/010048825.pdf; https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/9185/1/CEB%20Danert%20Draft%204%20UNESCO%2022%20April09.pdf), and manual drilling is limited to under about 40 m in alluvial or soft rock. Autonomy is advancing elsewhere: H&P and NOV deployed robotic pipe handling on a Permian oil rig in September 2025 and Nabors retrofits hands-free drill floors (https://drillingcontractor.org/hp-deploys-flexrobotics-on-permian-rig-74310), but these are large oil rigs. Borobotics' Grabowski is a compact autonomous electric drilling robot for 250 m geothermal boreholes, slower than diesel rigs and with undisclosed speed and cost (https://www.heise.de/en/news/Fully-autonomous-drilling-robot-drills-efficiently-and-cost-effectively-10250703.html?view=print). Honest limit: drilling automation and low-cost manual methods are known, so tasks that only re-implement pipe-handling robotics or PAT-rig designs are known answers; the open work is an affordable autonomous rig that sites and completes a sanitary water well in hard rock in a day, and each task needs its own basis. (open solution found: no; known answer: no; 6 project-level searches of api.github.com/search/repositories, export.arxiv.org/api/query, api.crossref.org/works; draft e917347ca8153e078f065fa4b57f4e586c9359577cd76742caf47b7eae4405ec, source 49d676a3000a7a09729a52287cbfd9764f45c7ab14e6b43f2767222e1774744a)
Tasks and evidence
Interactive project and evidence view · Machine-readable record