52 Digest | Robotnik RB-WATCHER From the summit As indicated, the RB-SUMMIT operated for years prior to the conception of the RBWATCHER. Originating as an r&d project, it found particular use as a platform for universities and research organisations to trial and integrate technologies relating to outdoor navigation. “When we decided to embark fully on the industrial inspection use-case, we spent the first three or four months doing tests with the most important sensors in our own facilities,” Millet says. “For example, we integrated many different possible camera gimbals. The ‘right’ camera head had to give thermal data, while also balancing for several other performance specifications, but after those first three or four months we realised the electric motors we were using weren’t good enough. “They were 24 V systems, and we needed 48 V to have enough power. Luckily, we’d already been researching how we might upgrade the batteries from 24 V to 48 V packs, which meant the whole powertrain could be upgraded together with reasonably simple power integration.” Those developments and several others took place within the one-year consultation period, with the customer subsequently ordering 10 more units of the finished prototype, as mentioned. Robotnik additionally updated and re-released the RB-SUMMIT with some fine-tuning lessons learned via the RB-WATCHER to make the Summit viable as a commercial inspection solution. While Robotnik can customise the RB-WATCHER to suit customer needs, this is rare among the units being output from its manufacturing plant and is usually for specific clients who want an especially large batch of UGVs. “This year, we’ve manufactured between 30 and 35 units of the standard version of the RB-WATCHER,” Millet says. “It’s true that the software is constantly being updated, most often for things like camera or other subsystem providers sending firmware updates, which means we have to do minor updates on our end. “The principal idea is to have the same sensors and electronics for all our RB-WATCHER clients because, by and large, those subsystems are components that have been validated to do these types of operations in these types of hazardous environments over many years of tests and commercial operations.” Naturally, Robotnik will aim to optimise the custom versions it provides to the best of its ability, but these will inevitably have individual differences that are not as tried, tested and validated as the standard RB-WATCHER. Hence, the company tends not to call them RB-WATCHER when it ships them, preferring to give them new names or codes to differentiate them from the standard-issue UGV. Watching the Watcher Millet gives a rundown of the RB-WATCHER’s subsystem layout. At the highest point on the 904 mm-tall UGV is the RTK-GPS antenna, ensuring its ability to maintain a line-of-sight link with GPS satellites. That antenna stands atop the rear of a raised platform over the UGV’s body, with this platform also mounting a gimballed inspection module, which integrates EO/ IR cameras in a pan-tilt configuration. Underneath the inspection module is a 3D Lidar, which is key to localisation, as well as detecting and dynamically navigating around obstacles. That Lidar sits atop the RB-WATCHER’s body, inside of which are the UGV’s core components. Among these are its computers, its February/March 2025 | Uncrewed Systems Technology The higher intelligent localisation and navigation functions come principally from the robot’s 3D Lidar and RGBD camera
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