Client company Createc and ORI design ground-breaking robot

Photographed above, ‘Spot’ the robot drew a lot of interest on a walk around Oxford this week. Developed in our Oxford Centre for Innovation by Createc, the robot is fitted with their smart radiation detection and mapping technology and the Oxford Robotics Institute’s autonomous navigation system so that it can remove the need for people to work in dangerous environments, such as nuclear disaster zones.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Createc has been developing smart radiation detection and 3D gamma radiation mapping technology over the last few years. Their ‘N-Visage®’ sensor has been deployed worldwide, including at the Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plant in Japan after the devastating earthquake and tsunami in 2011.

The Oxford Robotics Institute (ORI) has developed a state-of-the art, autonomous navigation system called ‘VILENS’ or Visual Inertial Legged Navigation System. The system allows robots to navigate hazardous sites and collate data remotely.

Combined for the first time, the N-Visage®-VILENS system can be installed on all types of robot to solve dangerous work-place challenges and because it processes the data in real time can analyse the situation better than humans.

The advantage of the combined system is that it can be attached to any robot suitable for the particular site under exploration – from a four-wheel drive to a legged robot, like Spot, – and avoids the need for a dedicated robotics development project for each new situation, saving time and cost.

This capability will be invaluable both in decommissioning nuclear sites, where better data leads to cheaper, quicker projects, and in accident response, where rapidly gathering good information is crucial to effective accident management.

Createc is also channel partner for Boston Dynamics enabling distribution of their Spot robot to UK buyers.

The Oxford Robotics Institute (ORI) is an interdisciplinary division within the University of Oxford’s Department of Engineering Science.

For more information about Createc, see here

For more information on the Trust’s centres, follow links for the Oxford Centre for Innovation and its sister centre the Wood Centre for Innovation.