Game Changing Automation - Six Steps for Implementing Agile Mobile Robots - Altohelix
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Game Changing Automation Six Steps for Implementing Agile Mobile Robots
What if you could access your sites remotely in real time from
anywhere in the world? What if you could capture unlimited
data about your site safely, efficiently and frequently? What
if you could keep your workers safe from hazards without
losing accessibility or operational visibility?
Comprehensive awareness of your operations enables quick responses to
changing conditions on the ground. At the same time, frequently collected,
well-structured data empowers your intelligent systems to provide greater
insight and business value. Together, they empower quick, informed
decision making, operational efficiencies and real business agility.
IoT and other Edge technologies demonstrate the potential of site
data, however fixed sensors are costly to deploy and can't respond to
changing conditions on the ground, often leaving you without situational
awareness when you need it the most. Agile mobile robots like Boston
Dynamics’ Spot provide an out-of-the-box solution that can bring the
right sensors to the right place at the right time. These quadruped
robots may resemble dogs, but their superhuman sensing ability, smart
and safe autonomy and powerful integrations enable innovation, agility
and operational efficiencies across industrial organizations—providing
powerful advantages over the competition.
Spot has unlocked valuable new workflows in the energy, oil & gas,
logistics, manufacturing and construction industries.
What advantages can it provide to your business?
2 Game Changing Automation
TABLE OF CONTENTS
How do agile mobile robots
unlock ROI? Let’s explore.
01 Learn how you can use robots to
improve operational efficiency.
Discover six steps for implementing
02
agile mobile robots in the field with
minimal friction and disruption.
03
Meet the game-changing Boston
Dynamics Spot robot and the platform.
04 Explore real-world case studies for
remote inspection and autonomous
data collection.
3 Game Changing Automation
Use Robots to Improve Operational Efficiency
The world is dynamic. It’s highly competitive. It’s just in time.
It’s powered by data.
Organizations that want to succeed in this environment need to find ways
Compelling ROI from Agile Mobile Robots
to feed actionable information to people and automated business systems
for quick, informed decision making. This allows them to react to changing
marketing conditions, adapt to rising customer expectations and take advantage
of opportunities before competitors.
Safer work environments for staff
Business process automation starts with accurate, reliable data, but most
organizations continue to rely on manual data collection by people. Data
collection performed by humans is prone to errors, expensive and slow. It’s also
often hazardous or impractical in remote environments. Operational efficiency
Reduced travel and operating costs
comes from shifting human work to higher-level tasks and decision making.
Agile mobile robots are a disruptive technology that are changing the way
industrial organizations operate and how construction firms manage site
progress. Hype aside, they can generate substantial ROI for innovative
Increased stakeholder engagement
companies who have the bold vision to leverage their capabilities.
Direct ROI from agile mobile robots is straightforward and compelling:
increasing safety by removing workers from hazardous environments, freeing More efficient data collection
skilled labor from routine data collection, reducing travel and operating costs
and improving efficiency by getting the right data at the right time.
But these are just the tip of the iceberg. Indirect ROI—the benefits that
result from 100x improvements in remote and autonomous data collection Better protection from litigation
and seamless integration into existing systems—is harder to measure but far
greater in magnitude.
4 Game Changing Automation
Use Cases to Consider
Remote Inspection Autonomous Data Collection
Remote inspection directly removes an operator from harm’s way (direct Autonomous data collection saves time (direct ROI) and reallocates
ROI) and reduces compliance and insurance costs, gives stakeholders a human resources to higher-value tasks and enables collecting more data
virtual presence on site, allows a single skilled operator to monitor many in a more repeatable, frequent and structured manner than is possible
different remote sites and operations and enables entirely new ways to manually. This higher quality data stream feeds into existing systems
understand live conditions on the ground. to produce better results—such as earlier error detection, payment
automation based on work completed and the creation of a
continuously-updated single source of truth that enables new
ways to effectively coordinate operations.
5 Game Changing Automation
CASE STUDY
Agile Mobile Robots in Action
National Grid
Utilities
National Grid, a leading utility, uses agile mobile robots to conduct
remote inspection of its Sandy Pond Substation—a facility that
features a thyristor valve hall, a 4.5-story building the size of a
soccer field that is too dangerous for humans to enter.
With down time costing National Grid approximately $1 million per day in
lost revenue, ensuring that the facility is operating at peak performance is
business critical.
National Grid developed a series of tests to evaluate Spot, starting with
the ability to first withstand the electrical field of the facility, traverse
uneven flooring and navigate the facility without getting too close to the
equipment. With data collected by Spot, National Grid can better plan and
potentially shorten maintenance downtime. In the future, National Grid
anticipates using Spot to conduct routine readings at more of its facilities
and track metrics over time—significantly trimming maintenance budgets.
6 Game Changing Automation
Six Steps for Getting Agile
Mobile Robots into the Field
Agile mobile robots can go where people can go on your sites,
are able to carry sensors and computers to collect and process
data at the edge and are easy and fun for operators to use.
But implementing game changing robots in the field can be intimidating.
Here is a deployment roadmap that any organization can use to leverage this
game-changing technology:
01 Formulate a value hypothesis that has executive support
Buy-in from the top is crucial to unlocking key resources. You’ll need
a dedicated team with the skill set to develop and integrate a solution
as well as access to a real site for testing. Executive support will help
secure the necessary resources and access without upsetting operators
on the ground.
02 Design simple, qualitative experiments
Testing your hypothesis can be as simple as asking How can agile mobile
robots add value to my organization? Articulating the direct and indirect
ROI targets helps prioritize development and provides a baseline that can
be continuously refined with on-site testing. Take the time to talk to site
operators and other stakeholders on the ground to understand what tasks
are dull, dirty or dangerous. Talk to people in the control or operations
rooms to understand what data they wish they had at their fingertips.
Don’t be afraid to think outside the box. Disruptive technologies can
enable totally new approaches to solving old problems.
7 Game Changing Automation
03 Kick off initial proof of concept tests
Test your hypotheses as quickly and cheaply as possible so you can focus
your attention on the use cases with the most potential. Some hypotheses
can be tested with a spreadsheet while others require building a prototype
and testing it on site. When building a prototype, focus on efficiency. When
factoring in time and staffing it may be less expensive to buy an off-the-
shelf sensor or integration than to develop one in-house.
Bringing the robot to your site is the best way to test your assumptions,
validate capabilities and discover new opportunities. Plan a series of proof
of concept (POC) experiments, beginning small and working your way up
to more complicated tests.
Start with basic mobility. Can the robot go everywhere it needs to go?
Next, test the autonomy. Can the robot navigate around the site? Can it
handle day-to-day changes to the site? Does it coexist with normal site
operations?
These early tests help stakeholders understand the robots’ capabilities,
provide inspiration for new applications and amplify executive support for
the project.
04 Build a simple prototype
Once you’ve established that the agile mobile robot is feasible, it’s time to
see if it can do useful work. This typically requires attaching an off-the-shelf
sensor (camera, gas sensor, LIDAR, etc.) and installing or developing code to
integrate it with the robot platform. Custom sensor integration can require
a diverse team to design the mount, wire the electronics and write the
software, but thankfully turnkey solutions and specialized integrators can
save your team time and money.
8 Game Changing Automation
Incrememental Proof-of-Concept Testing
MOBILITY AUTONOMY SENSING APPLICATION PILOT
Can the robot go If your value hypothesis Are you able to collect Can the robot do Hand the application to
everywhere it needs requires autonomy, can the sensor data you need, the tasks necessary operators on site to use
to go on site? Can it the robot navigate the such as high-resolution to conduct a value it day to day. Measure
handle the curbs, steps, site autonomously? images, survey-grade point experiment? Test the full ROI metrics to calculate
and other features Can it reliably capture clouds, or thermal images? application to see if it is direct and indirect ROI.
without getting stuck? the data you need? viable and to understand Iterate based on results.
next steps.
9 Game Changing Automation
05 Test sensors and applications on site
With the sensor attached, test to see if the robot can collect the on-
site data you need.
Can the robot collect the right data, at the right locations, consistently?
Can it handle typical obstacles and changes in site conditions?
Does it perform effectively and safely alongside other activities on site?
What types of missions will it need to execute?
How will site operators leverage the data collected?
06 Run on-site pilot programs with actual operators
With mobility, sensing and autonomy validated, you can focus on
developing real-world applications. Work with operators on site to
test end-to-end applications to see if they provide value.
Pilot deployments enable companies to measure ROI and understand
the long-term usability and usefulness of their agile mobile robots.
It’s important to budget time and resources for iteration, as feedback
from stakeholders in the pilot is critical to getting crucial buy-in from
operators, improving the application and maximizing ROI.
Work with your management team to ensure the pilot collects the
data it needs to decide whether applications are worth deploying
companywide.
10 Game Changing AutomationEnd-to-End Applications
Regular Site Scans Closing Data Gaps Automated Inspection
Daily site walks that capture 360 images and/ Remotely access the robot to inspect an area Automate operator rounds and readings by
or laser scans at repeatable locations and send of your environment where an issue has been sending inspection images through an edge
the data wirelessly to the cloud where they reported or that you’ve found to be under- CV pipeline before uploading to your business
are processed by software and algorithms to documented and send the inspection data to a intelligence dashboard.
generate valuable insight such as work-in-place centralized location accessible by your facility
reports. management platform.
11 Game Changing AutomationMeet the Boston Dynamics
Spot Robot and the Platform
Developed by Boston Dynamics, Spot is the most capable
agile mobile robot on the market with industry-leading
mobility, payload capacity, reliability and ease of use.
As a platform, Spot is designed to give your team the flexibility
to configure the system to maximize direct and indirect ROI. Most
importantly, the technology is accessible and easy for operators to
integrate into their daily routines without the typical friction of adopting
new technology.
Boston Dynamics is committed to changing the world’s idea of what
robots can do, a mission that wouldn’t be possible without empowered
users building new applications with Spot and providing us with
invaluable insight into the most challenging problems and rewarding
opportunities in their respective industries.
Boston Dynamics worked closely with customers during a year-
long Early Adopter Program to develop a process to deploy and
operationalize Spot. Based on these experiences in the field, we’ve built
a library of resources and trained a team of specialists to help innovators
formulate their value hypotheses, build and test their applications and to
deploy their solutions to disrupt the status quo.
12 Game Changing AutomationResources
See how some of our customers are implementing agile robots
in their operations:
13 Game Changing AutomationCONCLUSION
Make operations safer, more efficient and
predictable with Spot.
Contact our sales team to learn more about how you can
implement agile mobile robots in your operations today.
To learn more, visit www.bostondynamics.com
About Boston Dynamics
Boston Dynamics is a world leader in mobile robots, tackling some of the toughest robotics
challenges. We combine the principles of dynamic control and balance with sophisticated
mechanical designs, cutting-edge electronics and next-generation software for high-performance
robots equipped with perception, navigation and intelligence. Boston Dynamics has an
extraordinary and fast-growing technical team of engineers and scientists who seamlessly
combine advanced analytical thinking with bold engineering and boots-in-the-mud practicality.
© 2020 Boston Dynamics, Inc. All rights reserved.
For trademark, copyright, patent, and other intellectual property and legal information, visit https://www.bostondynamics.com/terms
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