Issue 40 Unmanned Systems Technology October/November 2021 ANYbotics ANYmal D l AI systems focus l Aquatic Drones Phoenix 5 l Space vehicles insight l Sky Eye Rapier X-25 l FlyingBasket FB3 l GCS focus l AUVSI Xponential 2021

32 Dossier | ANYbotics ANYmal D temperature limit. No heaters are used to stay above the 0 C minimum, as the aforementioned electronics and the battery are sufficient as internal heaters. Dr Mauerer adds that the BMS has also been designed in-house, and that the overall battery system is certified to UN 38.3 to enable its transportation. The company has also certified its battery to IEC standards for industrial equipment, work that included tests for overcharging, high-temperature charging and other potential hazards. “This application puts some fairly tough requirements on the battery,” Dr Mauerer says. “Like the robot, it has to be IP67-rated, it has to be robust against impacts, and it has to survive repeated peak currents. “All the legs are constantly going from full speed to standstill to full speed again. That constant spooling up and down of the drives means shuffling a lot of power around – even e-bike batteries don’t have the current pulses or temperature concerns we do. That, and form factor issues, are why COTS battery packs weren’t enough for our needs.” Charging receptacles are located on the lower and upper sides of the body near the rear. The upper port is used for manually plugging in charging cables, while the lower port is used by the robot for its autonomous recharging. The end-user can install the docking stations wherever convenient, while the robot uses its 3D SLAM to accurately approach the dock, although the device has four QR codes around it for additional feedback in case the docking station has been moved. The robot then positions itself over the output and squats down to it, with a full recharge taking about 3 hours. A comms system ensures the dock is only energised when the robot is sitting on it, to prevent shock or corrosion from occurring over time. Survey and inspection tools The inspection head is a two-axis gimbal (with a 360 º field of view in both axes), controlled by Maxon motor-actuators. Four sensors are installed as standard – a 20x optical zoom 4K camera in the top-left, a 2000 lumen LED in the top-right (with heatsinks atop to cool the powerful spotlight), a 200 kHz ultrasonic microphone in the bottom right, and a 336 x 256 IR camera from FLIR with a temperature detection range of up to 500 C. Dr Mauerer says, “The 4K camera is of course critical for spotting damage in tanks, pipes and other industrial equipment, and the high-bandwidth microphone is useful not only for hearing leaks but also doing frequency analyses of bearings in systems with large electric motors. We can also customise the payload, for instance if the end-user wants a different zoom or thermal camera.” Also, while the perception cameras and Lidar are principally used for mapping, inspection engineers can of course use them for spotting structural changes or problems in a facility, for example by running them through their choice of analytics software to detect changes in the 3D SLAM-generated world model from one day to the next. “We have two or three pieces of software that we actually open-source for this purpose,” Fankhauser notes. “Some of the mapping programs we use are available on our company GitHub; they are quite popular and are regularly updated and optimised.” Between the payload and the Lidar, an open space with a 12 V interface and inputs for USB, Ethernet or serial connections is available for a customer’s own integrations, such as gas sensors, radiation sensors or GPS modules. With a 15 kg payload capacity – the inspection payload weighing 6 kg – up to 9 kg of further systems can be added, and the standard inspection payload can even be omitted from the delivery of the ANYmal if additional ‘real estate’ is desired. Data management The company’s use of neural networks has trained the ANYmal to read and understand gauges, valves and other analogue devices common in industrial facilities in real time via its zoom camera. Also, the onboard analysis software can identify missing machine parts using the camera, interpret different kinds of alarms or vibrations via the microphone, and perform live thermographic analysis of hotspots detected by the IR sensor. All of these contextual analyses are encapsulated in regular reports delivered wirelessly to the end-user to save them time and effort in October/November 2021 | Unmanned Systems Technology The standard two-axis inspection gimbal features a 4K EO camera, a 336 x 256 IR camera, a 2000 lumen LED and a 200 kHz microphone