Boston Dynamics has announced a major update to its Spot robot dog bringing a number of software and hardware improvements to the platform. These include improved inspection workflows and behaviour towards humans, and autonomous door manipulation.
Inspection workflow improvements
In an effort to make Spot adoption easier, Boston Dynamics has released an update that makes visual, thermal, and acoustic inspections easier than ever. These are all available to use in Boston's remote inspection software Scout as well as the tablet.
Thermal inspection
When equipment that exceeds safe values is read during an inspection a notification is sent to Scout. Actions can now be setup to capture multiple regions of interest in a single photo, allowing staff to have access to more data.
During an inspection review, temperatures can now be read and compared across an entire photo as well as setting up alerts for differences between up to three regions.
Setting up a thermal inspection no requires the parameters to be set during the setup process, they can now be configured later via Scout.
Guage reading
Thanks to a partnership with Levatas, Spot can now read analogue gauges and monitor trends through Scout as well as trigger alerts for abnormal readings.
Acoustic imaging
Fluke's SV600 has been fully integrated with Spot, allowing acoustic inspections to be triggered directly from the tablet with evaluation in Scout.
Learn more about the Spot and SV600 integration with a demo from the Sphere Drones team.
Human oriented improvements
Boston Dynamics has made a number of hardware and software improvements to the way Spot operates and interacts with humans.
Spot now has an integrated audio-visual system that consists of safety lights around the robot, a buzzer, and a speaker. By default, Spot will flash its lights and play tones to let anyone nearby of its movements. There are four different scenarios with varying audio-visual patterns:
- Standard robot operation: Spot is operating as intended during normal operations. Green blinking lights.
- Inspection actions underway: Spot is conducting an inspection. White flashing lights.
- Increased caution recommended: Spot is undertaking an activity with increased risk, traversing stairs or a crosswalk or intersection. Amber flashing lights.
- Stopped robot: When the emergency stop has been pressed. Red flashing lights.
Autonomous door manipulation
Spot, when equipped with its Arm is now capable of opening doors autonomously during an Autowalk mission. The feature is still in beta but will allow Spot to complete multi-room missions without any human interaction.
If you are looking to implement Spot in your operations and finding out more on its abilities, contact our team today.
