A mobile robot has been deployed at BMW Hams Hall to scan the plant amd support maintenance
Equipped with visual, thermal and acoustic sensors, SpOTTO is used for collecting valuable data for the plant’s digital twin and serving as a watchdog and overseeing maintenance of production facilities.
The robot plays a pivotal role in creating and refining the plants fully connected digital twin, which operates on three levels. On the first, 3D representations of the entire plant are generated. The second level comprises a large data layer into which the autonomous robot dog, production facilities and IT systems at the plant feed all relevant information and on the third level – the application level – dedicated programmes sort the data that’s been collected into comprehensible and traceable units.
It is the combination of these three levels that makes the fully connected digital twin unique. Using apps, experts at Plant Hams Hall then evaluate and utilise this data for quality assurance and production planning.
In addition, the visual, thermal and acoustic sensors enable SpOTTO to perform numerous maintenance tasks including monitoring the temperature of manufacturing equipment and recognising if an installation is running too hot – an early sign of potential component failure. It can also identify leaks in the compressed-air lines used in production. Given that compressed air requires a substantial amount of energy, detecting leaks quickly can lower energy consumption.
Before SpOTTO’s introduction at the plant, a dedicated team tested which activities the robot dog would be suitable for in a yearlong development process.
Now, other potential uses are currently being trialled in the plant’s Technical Basement, including reading analogue operating controls or performing complex sequences of movements for accessing hard-to-reach areas of production.
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