ANYbotics is launching ANYmal X, a quadruped robot certified to operate in explosive atmospheres. Designed for oil, gas and chemical facilities, it combines autonomous inspections with protection against ignition risks.
Swiss manufacturer ANYbotics presents ANYmal X as the world’s first legged inspection robot designed for explosive atmospheres. The new model targets industrial areas where conventional equipment can pose an ignition risk. The company is launching it with an architecture developed specifically to meet the safety requirements of these environments.
Autonomous inspections at oil, gas and chemical facilities
According to ANYbotics, ANYmal X uses an industrial artificial intelligence system to carry out autonomous routine inspections at oil, gas and chemical facilities.
These sites contain critical equipment, including pumps, compressors, valves and pipelines, often located in hazardous areas. Operators usually need personal protective equipment, portable gas detectors and entry permits to access them.
ANYbotics aims to automate some of these tasks to reduce staff exposure to industrial hazards. The manufacturer also highlights the continuous collection of structured, repeatable observation data.
This information can feed digital models of facilities, including digital twins, by adding more detail on the condition of equipment and its surroundings.
How ANYmal X meets ATEX and IECEx certification
The main distinguishing feature of ANYmal X is its design for potentially explosive atmospheres. ANYbotics says it developed the robot to meet ATEX requirements in Europe and IECEx requirements internationally.
In these environments, electrical devices must be protected against ignition risks. Certification requires, in particular, demonstrating that a piece of equipment cannot ignite a flammable atmosphere, even in the event of a failure.
This constraint is particularly difficult for a legged robot. Unlike fixed industrial equipment, which can use heavy flameproof enclosures or limit its electrical energy, a quadruped has to keep a structure light enough to climb stairs.
It also has to integrate powerful motors and a high-capacity battery while meeting explosion protection requirements.
ANYbotics says it devoted four years of development and more than 10 patents to ANYmal X.
“Many experts believed a legged robot could never be made safe for explosive atmospheres,” says Péter Fankhauser, co-founder and CEO of ANYbotics.
Reducing unplanned production shutdowns
Beyond staff safety, ANYbotics presents ANYmal X as an industrial monitoring tool intended to detect anomalies that could cause production shutdowns more quickly.
The manufacturer puts the global market for autonomous inspection in the oil, gas and chemical sectors at $102 billion. This estimate is based in particular on the cost of specialised labour and on losses linked to preventable equipment failures.
According to figures put forward by ANYbotics, undetected failures cause around $1,400 billion in annual losses from avoidable shutdowns at the world’s 500 largest companies.
In the oil and gas sector alone, Siemens estimates that one hour of unplanned downtime can cost up to $500,000. ANYbotics also cites NIOSH data showing that the occupational fatality rate for US extraction workers is seven times the national average.
ANYmal X is therefore part of a strategy of regular facility inspections, with the stated aim of limiting human interventions in hazardous areas and improving the detection of technical problems.
ANYbotics and its Shift industrial platform
Spun out of ETH Zurich (the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich) in 2016, ANYbotics develops the ANYmal inspection robots and the Shift operations platform. Shift supports the automation of inspections and the use of the collected data for maintenance operations.
The company says it has raised more than $150 million from European and Silicon Valley investors. It employs around 200 people across Zurich, San Francisco and Barcelona.
With ANYmal X, ANYbotics extends its offering to industrial facilities with explosion risks, combining an autonomous mobile inspection robot with the monitoring and maintenance tools of its Shift platform.