A startup from Barcelona has put an invention on the table to revolutionize the industrial sector in Spain in terms of security; the Keyper autonomous robot dog. The company keybotic launches this new project that is expected to be on the market by mid-2023 and that it will work for companies such as BASF or Carburos Metálicos.
The robot-dog Keyper seeks to make autonomous robotics more accessible, until now without a presence in the Spanish national industry. With a business model ‘Robot as a Service’, Keybotic proposes the rental of these ‘unusual dogs’ instead of the traditional machines. Keyper will have a software development exclusively for industrial sectors.
A 100% automated dog
In this way, the incorporation of the robotic dog Keyper will not require human intervention, because by himself he will carry out security rounds and keep the most dangerous environments of the industries in perfect condition. Thus, it will be able to move between gravel, unevenness, pipes and stairs, detecting gas leaks, vapors and excessively hot areas.
In addition, you will be able to read meters and send alerts in real time, with control images at all times, allowing that coordinates with other Keyper dog-robots so that emergency tasks could be executed in a more agile and efficient way.
The robot-dog It has two anchors in which image analysis systems with Artificial Intelligence (AI), sensors, thermal cameras and other high-performance tools can be installed. That is to say, it is not simply an attractive robot, but useful by itself, without the need to be teleoperated.
Keybotic co-founder, irene gomezinsists on the idea that Keyper has to be ‘click to start’, that is to say, that by pressing a button it starts to work and offer a service to the client. Its use is so simple that he even assures: “If the company’s maintenance technician knows how to use Instagram, he knows how to use our robot.”
Keyper’s potential is immense, and it will even be able to improve and incorporate new elements based on customer needs, since the robot-dog is undoubtedly a platform yet to be explored.
Until this Barcelona-based company raised the problem, no one had put a solution on the table before. There are industrial sectors, especially the chemical one, that require the incorporation of dog-robots that automatically carry out those maintenance and safety functionsbased on repetitive movements, which could be more dangerous for human integrity.
keybotic was born in 2020 with an initial budget of one million euros, contributed by its founders and private investors. But how were its origins?
Irene Gomez and her partner, Hilario TomeThey were still studying at the university, but they always remained linked to the Robotics Association. In the life of Irene herself, Tomé, a great expert on humanoid robots, had a great influence.
But without a doubt, the element that changed the life of Keybotic and that put the company on the technological map was the creation of the American contest DARPA Robotics Challengeorganized by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of the United States in 2018. They realized that robots had always been teleoperated and now they wanted to present their innovative idea in the most important robotics competition in the world together with the NASA Robotics Challenge.
Its success in both prestigious contests make Keybotic a benchmark company in the democratization of robotics applied to industry. Now it is proposed to continue solving problems in sectors such as mining and as support to Security Corps and Forces before collapses, fires or gas leaks. And it is that with autonomous robots the lives of people will be safeguarded, since they will be able to make efficient decisions for themselves.
