Meet Spider, the tiny robot doctor for blimps

From Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works team — the same folks that brought you the strategic recon aircrafts U-2 Dragon Lady and SR-71 Blackbird as well as the stealth fighter jet F-117 Nighthawk — now comes Spider (not to be confused with this one), a device to repair blimps more efficiently than ever.  

As Skunk Works explains, old methods to repair blimps are time-consuming. One has to deflate the blimp (which can take hours), and walk around with a bright, handheld light, looking very carefully for rips and tears.

By contrast, the Spider (short for Self-Propelled Instrument for Damage Evaluation and Repair), however, uses two magnetic halves, one to shine a bright LED light outside the blimp, and one that senses this light from the inside, thus exposing holes and problem areas. It can then move its patching mechanism over said hole, repair it, and then snap before and after pics of the fix, allowing a pair of human eyes to inspect it later. Read more...