IEEE Award 2023: Energy Robotics honoured for its product innovation

Energy Robotics, leading developer and provider of a software platform for the digitalization of industrial inspection and security tasks, convinced the jury of the IEEE RAS Awards 2023 with its advanced solutions. Energy Robotics' innovative robot and cloud brain enables robot-assisted inspection of production facilities, for example in the oil and gas sector, as well as in the chemical and power and utilities sector, by using heterogeneous fleets of mobile autonomous robots and drones. This not only provides relief to the asset owners from the ongoing shortage of skilled workers, but also opens up the possibility of collecting reliable data around the clock and, furthermore, supports occupational safety, health and environmental protection.

Energy Robotics beat international competition with its unique offering for performing end-to-end inspection and monitoring tasks in potentially dangerous environments using heterogeneous fleets of robots.

"Our solutions are based on more than 15 years of research. The company was founded directly out of the Technical University of Darmstadt. As a result, a great deal of technical expertise and innovation went into our development, both then and now.  Receiving the IEEE Robotics and Automation Award for Product Innovation confirms that we are ahead of the curve and offer our customers significant added value by linking market needs with the current state of scientific knowledge," says Marc Dassler, Co-Founder and CEO of Energy Robotics.

No robot use without intelligence

The Energy Robotics software platform can be used with robots from various manufacturers. This works thanks to hardware abstraction. This means that the underlying operating system is designed to be as flexible as possible. In this way, the hardware-independent robot brain provides a fleet of diverse robots with the necessary intelligence to move autonomously through the inspection environment and to monitor up to 100,000 inspection points daily and independently. The necessary raw data is collected with the help of cameras and other sensors.

Through the cloud brain, all deployed robots are managed, inspection missions are planned, and the collected raw data is transformed into actionable information with the help of powerful AI algorithms called Skills. Use-cases solved by Skills include early gas leak detection, reading pressure gauges, detecting valve positions, switch positions, fire-extinguishers and audio analysis of motors and pumps, as well as monitoring defects in fences, windows and doors, checking emergency exits to ensure they are unobstructed and detecting (unauthorised) persons.

Customers worldwide benefit from autonomous robot navigation in uneven 3D environments, including outdoor facilities. In addition, the creation, execution and monitoring of complex autonomous inspection rounds are fully supported. Operation is easy throughout thanks to an intuitively designed user interface. For secure, encrypted and reliable communication between the robot and the user interface, the Energy Robotics solution uses 4G, 5G or WiFi.

The 2023 Robotics and Automation Award for Product Innovation presented to Energy Robotics.

Cutting Edge Innovation Honoured

The IEEE Robotics and Automation Award for Product Innovation recognises companies that bring to market an innovative commercial product incorporating robotics and automation science and technology. All submissions for the award must be brought to market within two years of nomination to be eligible. This can include, but is not limited to, household appliances, vehicles, houses, robots and other commercially available products that use robotics and automation technology. The jury judges on the criteria of significance of the innovation, creativity, technological merit, originality and potential impact on the product's industry.

Dr. Stefan Kohlbrecher, CTO and co-founder of Energy Robotics, receives the Award from IEEE RAS President Prof. Frank Park (left) and IEEE RAS Senior-Past President Prof. Wolfram Burgard (right).

About IEEE Robotics and Automation Society

The IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) is the world's leading professional association for robotics and automation, representing researchers and educators in academia, government, industry and private institutes. It was founded in 1987 as a professional society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Today, it has more than 15,000 members representing 115 countries and 44 technical committees addressing current research topics. IEEE RAS publishes four leading peer-reviewed journals and co-edits 15 other scientific journals. IEEE RAS hosts 10 fully sponsored peer-reviewed international conferences and co-sponsors 82 conferences worldwide.

About Energy Robotics

Founded in 2019 as a spin-off of the Technical University of Darmstadt, Energy Robotics is a pioneer in mobile robots for autonomous inspection of industrial facilities.The start-up offers the first commercially available software platform that brings together a hardware-independent robot operating system, cloud-based fleet management and AI-driven data analysis for industrial applications.

Energy Robotics software-equipped mobile robots are used for remote inspection and monitoring in demanding environments such as the oil, gas, petrochemical, chemical and power industries. More than 50 robots with a total of more than 5,000 mission hours are already in use on four continents, inspecting around 40,000 inspection points.