ANYbotics partnered with Continental to demonstrate robotic last-meter package delivery by combining a self-driving vehicle with the legged robot ANYmal.

The yearly Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, NV, is the world’s largest trade fair for business and consumer technologies. At CES 2019, the German automotive manufacturing company Continental demonstrated their vision for seamless mobility in goods delivery. Joining forces with ANYbotics, Continental showcased cascaded robot delivery by combing a self-driving shuttle with the autonomous legged robot ANYmal.

Image Credit: Continental AG

Due to the growth in global e-commerce and urbanization, the need for automated delivery is significantly increasing. Continental envisions a holistic delivery concept that improves availability, efficiency, and safety in the parcel delivery value chain. To solve the last-meter/last-yard delivery, a driverless vehicle, such as Continental’s CUbE shuttle, carries multiple mobile robots to deploy packages all the way to the consumer.

At CES, visitors could experience how ANYmal exits a driverless shuttle while safely carrying a parcel with a weight of up to 10 kg. Lidar and cameras allow the system to perceive the environment and climb over challenging terrains such as curbs, stairs, and other obstacles on the ground. Enabled by ANYmal’s fully rotatable legs, the robot rings the doorbell with its foot and drops the package in front of the door, before returning to the self-driving shuttle to pick up the next parcel.

In September 2018, the ANYbotics field team boarded a helicopter to fly out to one of the world’s largest offshore converter platforms in the North Sea. Equipped with a customized sensorhead, our four-legged robotic platform ANYmal autonomously performed various inspection tasks of the platform in a one-week pilot installation, making it the world’s first autonomous offshore robot.

Offshore Wind Farms

Offshore energy production is a key component of the global energy supply. Apart from oil and natural gas extraction, wind energy is increasingly being produced offshore. One of the key innovators in this field is the Dutch-German transmission system operator TenneT, which connects large-scale offshore wind farms to the onshore grid over a high voltage DC connection. Set out to provide reliable and low-cost energy transmission and distribution, the company adopts most recent technologies.

Robotic Inspection with ANYmal

ANYbotics is partnering with TenneT to evaluate robotic inspection and maintenance on their offshore converter platforms. In periods of unmanned platform operation, a mobile robot helps to reduce the risk of disruptions and ensures the security of the electricity supply. Based on its autonomous navigation capabilities, ANYmal performs routine inspection tasks to monitor machine operations, read out sensory equipment and detect thermal hotspots and oil or water leakages. Whenever required, ANYmal can be remotely operated from an onshore control center in order for TenneT to receive real-time information through the robot’s onboard visual and thermal cameras, microphones and gas detection sensors.

Successful Pilot Installation

Before being deployed on the offshore mission, the ANYbotics field team underwent a rigorous safety training including helicopter escape and survival on sea scenarios. After being taken on a guided tour of the platform to 3D-map the environment and learn the position and characteristics of all inspection points, ANYmal autonomously navigated the platform and processed inspection protocols. The video documents a fully autonomous mission, covering a total of 16 inspection points such as gauges, levers, oil- and water levels and various other visual and thermal measurements.

On Sunday, Croatia and France are playing for the 2018 World Cup title. ANYmal has also been infected by the worldwide football hype and has been training diligently in the last weeks to learn how to kick.

ANYmal appears on The X-Files (Season 11, Episode 7, aired on February 28th, 2018) alongside David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. ©2018 Fox Broadcasting Co. Cr: Shane Harvey/FOX

With the fingers on the joystick, we were ready, and (probably) more nervous than the star of the day itself. “Action!” The robot ANYmal runs down a dark hallway, chasing agents Scully and Mulder in a nerve-racking pursuit. This scene is one out of many in which ANYmal got to act in the newest episode of the television show The X-Files (no spoilers, we promise).

For decades, people are fascinated by robots, and this fascination has not worn off. So when we got a call with the question if our robotic platform ANYmal could be part of The X-Files, we were super excited.

ANYmal is a four-legged robot designed to go into places which other robots cannot reach. Carrying a payload consisting of cameras, microphones, gas detection and many other sensors, we have developed ANYmal to support professionals in their work to ensure the safety of industrial sites by regular inspection. While ANYmal is also used to entertain people and make them laugh (see for example Kids meeting ANYmal at a Zoo), this was the first time for it to slip into the role of the “bad guy.”

The ANYbotics engineers Samuel, Christian, and Linus (top to bottom) on set preparing for the next scene.

To our positive surprise, the producers and their team decided to work with real robots instead of relying solely on visual effects. To make this reality, our team packed one of our ANYmal robots and flew to Vancouver, British Columbia, to spend a week on set to film various scenes in a warehouse. Coordinating with the actors, the camera, light, stage, and sound teams, we set up and steered ANYmal to deliver a TV-worthy performance. Because one of the scenes would not have been possible without the risk of damaging the real robot, we were happy to find a perfect look-alike stunt double for ANYmal.

ANYmal stunt double (left) and real robot (right).

We hope we got you excited to watch this special episode of The X-Files (Season 11, Episode 7, aired on February 28th, 2018 on FOX). We thank the entire team for making this happen! For more information about ANYmal, please visit www.anybotics.com/anymal.