Plant inspections as data-gathering missions
A look behind the scenes: top experts and enterprising creative types are not the only ones working at our sites – WACKER is home to high-tech colleagues too, i.e. to robots that carry out a wide range of jobs and gather data that make production smarter. SPOT is one of these. You can find him walking on all fours, stepping gingerly through our Burghausen or Nünchritz plants as he supports employees during plant inspections.
VCI award winner
The German Chemical Industry Association (VCI e.V.) presented SPOT the robotic dog with its 2024 Responsible Care Award in the “Best Digitalization Project” category. The association grants this award for inspiring projects and role models within its member companies.
The size and shape of a poodle, this yellow, four-legged industrial robot began inspecting our chemical plants on its own in January. Its name is SPOT, and its job includes supporting our plant operators as they make their regular rounds.
Listening, smelling, feeling
This robotic dog has many talents: It can photograph parts of the plant with the many cameras in its head. Using trained artificial intelligence, it identifies, records and stores even the tiniest changes or leaks. Plus, it has a thermographic camera for measuring the temperature of individual components. Built-in gas sensor technology enables SPOT to determine gas quantities in the ppm range. Thanks to its highly sensitive audio system, it can also detect frequencies that people cannot hear, recognizing, for example, that a pump is defective. Unlike people, the robot is objective and records all data equally.
It can also be readily deployed in dangerous situations and can move around the plant environment with the flexibility of a human being.
Autonomous missions
SPOT the robotic dog works multiple hours a day at our Burghausen and Nünchritz sites. An employee creates SPOT’s missions from a computer, specifies the desired measurements, runs updates and monitors the robot’s work. If the dog doesn’t do its rounds automatically, it can also be controlled with a joystick, like a remote-controlled car. Employees can see the plant live through the dog’s eyes via a computer screen and take measurements with just a mouse click. SPOT follows operators’ instructions to the letter. After the inspection round, it automatically connects up to its docking station where it is charged until its next deployment.
While making its rounds, the primary job of this robotic colleague is to collect data to be recorded digitally. When unforeseen events arise, these data provide insight into potential causes. The difficult decision whether to shut down a plant on the basis of these data, however, ultimately remains with the employee on duty.
Making the rounds with a gamepad
SPOT is made by the Boston Dynamics company, and its software developer is Energy Robotics of Darmstadt, Germany, which uses SPOT as a mobile robotic platform for its software and sensor products.
In addition, all of the data that the robot collects are also used for ongoing software development work. Using artificial intelligence and an industry 4.0 approach, all of the data that SPOT gathers can be processed and interlinked, allowing the system to recognize, for example, whether a valve is open or closed. SPOT can even record the positions of a ball valve, a device often used in chemical plants, as well as identify and evaluate analog data such as flow rates or pressure. Deviations from the target state trigger emails to control-room employees.
An RFID sensor is to be tested as well. This will allow employees to determine, for instance, whether safety valves have been properly sealed – an otherwise demanding, monotonous job.
There are many other conceivable uses as well, opening up the door to a wide range of factory automation applications and making the use of SPOT even more efficient.
