ANYbotics launches the long-awaited four autonomous legged robot

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20.08.2019
ANYmal C

Following several years of development, AnyBotics has today launched ANYmal C, the long-awaited four-legged autonomous robot for routine industrial inspections tasks. The first ANYmal C robots will be ready for shipment before the end of the year.

The energy, oil & gas, processing, and many other industries have been eagerly awaiting mobile robotic solutions to improve safety and efficiency in their operations. Due to their high complexity, industrial plants are difficult to operate without failures, and due to high downtime costs, plant operators are very keen to avoid interruptions. To prevent equipment from failing, plants need to be monitored and inspected regularly. However, manual data collection by human inspectors is a tedious and error-prone task in a potentially dangerous environment. Even if parts of the equipment are equipped with sensors, defects such as leakages, rust, hotspots, or missing equipment are challenging to detect.

To navigate the complex infrastructure of industrial plants, ANYbotics has launched «ANYmal C», the next-generation autonomous legged robot. Built around the superior mobility of four legs, ANYmal C can move through industrial environments including steps and stairs without the need for any adaptations to a facility. Carrying a variety of sensors such as visual and thermal cameras, LIDAR, microphones, and gas detection sensors, ANYmal C perceives and interprets a broad range of physical properties. The system evaluates instruments, checks for the status of objects, detect hotspots and senses gases – even in situations that are threatening to human inspectors.

First shipments before the end of the year
ANYmal C is ready to be tested on industrial sites. ANYbotics is providing test installations and pilot projects worldwide to prepare for completely unsupervised installations in the future. ANYmal C is available for sale to development customers, engineering partners, and universities including a complete software and simulation environment. The first ANYmal C robots will be ready for shipment before the end of the year.

Today, Anybotics will present ANYmal C for the first time at the World Robot Conference in Beijing.

Ten years of developing robots
For more than ten years, the ANYbotics team had been building legged robots such as ANYmal B, which has been selling the previous generation of ANYmal (B). In 2016 the team spun off from the ETH Zurich and with a team of 35 members, they developed ANYmal C, a completely redesigned robot from the feet up based on industry requirements – particularly enabling access in challenging environments which have been, until today, only accessible to humans.

We tested the previous generation of ANYmal B in a broad range of environments over the last years and gained a lot of insights. Based on our learnings, it became clear that we would have to re-design the robot to meet the requirements of industrial customers in terms of safety, quality, reliability, and lifetime. ANYmal has also been tested in various applications such as the world’s first deployment on an offshore plant in the North Sea”, says Péter Fankhauser, Co-Founder & Chief Business Development Officer at ANYbotics.

„We have been developing ANYmal C for the last two years and we are very excited and proud to finally show it to the world. ANYmal C is primarily developed to perform autonomous routine inspections in industrial environments. In addition to this exciting field, we continue to explore a range of other applications. To this end, we closely collaborate with engineering and research partners and offer easy expandability of ANYmal C, simulation tools, and software APIs“, adds Fankhauser.



(Press release)

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