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Boston Dynamics - ‘SPOT’ Automate sensing & inspection capture limitless data and explore without boundaries
Boston Dynamics
Boston Dynamics is a world leader in mobile robots, tackling some of the toughest robotics challenges. We combine the principles of dynamic control and balance with sophisticated mechanical designs, cuttingedge electronics, and next-generation software for high-performance robots equipped with perception, navigation, and intelligence. Boston Dynamics has an extraordinary and fast-growing technical team of engineers and scientists who seamlessly combine advanced analytical thinking with bold engineering and boots-in-the-mud practicality.
Company Details
Website: www.bostondynamics.com Email: Sales@bostondynamics.com Tel: +16178685600
Address:
9PVR+2Q Waltham Massachusetts United States
Technology
Development stage: Commercial
Launch date: 2019
INNOVATION & INNOVATION & TECHNOLOGY TECHNOLOGY
IN ENERGY ANNUAL IN ENERGY ANNUAL 20212022
Automate sensing & inspection, capture limitless data and explore without boundaries
TRANSFORMATIVE MOBILITY
Spot is an agile mobile robot that navigates terrain with unprecedented mobility, allowing you to automate routine inspection tasks and data capture safely, accurately, and frequently.
The results? Safer, more efficient and more predictable operations.
SITE DOCUMENTATION
Integrate Spot with a 360° camera and site documentation software to reduce time required to capture data and enhance employee productivity in documenting and managing site progress.
Learn how Pomerleau uses HoloBuilder’s Spot integration to save 20 hours of employee time per week documenting a 500,000 sqft. project.
DIGITAL TWIN CREATION
Equip Spot with a laser scanner and program routine scanning routes to create digital twins of worksites and identify rework sooner.
GAUGE READING
Attach a Spot CAM to the base platform to collect color visuals and read analog gauges measuring pressure, flow, temperature, and more. Attach a PTZ to the Spot CAM to get 30x optical zoom and inspect gauges from afar.
LEAK DETECTION
Add processing to visuals collected by the Spot CAM payload to detect water and steam leaks around plants and note equipment with degraded performance.
NOISE ANOMALY DETECTION
Equip Spot with a microphone or utilise the one on the Spot CAM to detect abnormal operating noises like ticking, grinding, or whirring.
THERMAL INSPECTION
Equip Spot with a thermal camera to detect issue-indicating hot spots on machines or electrical conductors.
TUNNEL INSPECTION
Drive Spot underground remotely post-blast to look for cracks and instabilities and ensure safe conditions for workers.
WHY DOES BOSTON DYNAMICS MAKE LEGGED ROBOTS?
Boston Dynamics focuses on creating robots with advanced mobility, dexterity and intelligence. We have long held that mobility sufficient to access both the natural and the built world required legs. We began the pursuit of this dream over 30 years ago, first in academia and then as part of Boston Dynamics because it was an exciting technical challenge and because to build a highly mobile robot required it. We wanted to build a robot that could go where people go. The commonly referred to “dull, dirty and dangerous” tasks don’t occur solely on a neatly organised factory floor, they pop up in the natural world and in existing infrastructure. These are places where being effective requires deftly maneuvering through rocky trails, staircases, catwalks, doors or narrow cluttered passages. The environment can’t be conformed to the machine, and therefore the machine must be capable in the environment as it comes.
While we take the natural world as inspiration for our robots, the design is ultimately motivated by functionality. Our robots end up moving like humans and animals not because we designed them to look like humans and animals but because we made them balance. Balance and dynamic motion are characteristics we have previously only seen in animals. It is this organic quality of dynamically stable motion that people tend to associate with lifelike movement. Partly because of the benefits of dynamic motion, our robots can navigate tough unstructured, unknown or antagonistic terrain with ease. Wheeled and tracked robots are limited by stairs, gaps, ground-level obstructions such as cabling and staged materials and minor height differences in flooring. These environments don’t present the same challenges for legged robots.
WHAT MAKES BOSTON DYNAMICS UNIQUE?
One of the things that makes Boston Dynamics unique is the ambition to build dynamically stable, legged machines. Marc Raibert began tackling this problem before anyone else in the world. And we’ve been at it since, almost 35 years. We’ve been inspired by and worked towards this goal for so long that we have invented techniques to make robots work that you can’t find in any textbook or technical article. The result is that we now know how to build walking machines of any size, shape, actuator style or powerplant. These unique designs enable our robots to conquer terrains inaccessible to others, and perform automated tasks in unstructured environments.
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Adam Ballard, Facilities Technology Manager, bp
