RDI’s Iris Explorer Spot payload
12/05/2023
A new camera-based solution, the Iris Explorer payload for Spot, combines the mobility and automation of Spot with vibration analysis Motion amplification technology. This allows industrial customers to take next-generation vibration analysis right to the asset in even the most remote or hazardous environments. The Iris Explorer robotic route-based vibration analysis solution means customers can perform high-volume, highly repeatable autonomous route-based vibration analysis with reduced risk and increased efficiency. 
Jeff Hay, CEO of RDI Technologies, said: “Our integration with Boston Dynamics creates significant opportunities to transform asset-heavy industries. Vibration analysis is a high-value part of every asset maintenance programme. In bringing together industry-leading vibration analysis and robotics in RDI’s Iris Explorer Spot payload, we are providing critical tools to address challenging business problems, increasing safety and productivity while improving operations and assets in complex industrial environments. We are already seeing customers gain more value from the unique pairing of motion amplification technology with Spot’s agility and teleoperation capabilities.”
The Iris Explorer payload is driven by RDI’s motion amplification technology. Measuring deflection, displacement, movement and vibration not visible to the human eye, the motion amplification technology turns every pixel in the camera’s view into a sensor that is capable of measuring vibration or movement with high levels of accuracy. It provides instant visual imagery of hard-to-detect faults such as misalignment, bending, soft foot and separation, along with trending capability of vibration readings for monitoring of chronic or emergent issues.
Active condition monitoring is time-consuming, meticulous work; if rushed or carried out improperly, data has little value and entire routes must be redone. Industrial operations benefit from the Iris Explorer’s automated feature finding, which provides the ability to repeatedly and easily capture the exact same image data every time, across every route, for every asset and in any environment, as often as needed.
The Iris Explorer payload captures the full field of view of an asset and allows for conditional, automated data triggers.
This means customers experience full data flexibility, allowing them to focus on the most relevant data, without the need to repeat routes, which is a common problem in asset maintenance. Combined with Spot, route-based operations become seamlessly automated and can be remotely monitored. Customers can apply the same observation protocols on the thousandth inspection as it was programmed to do on the first, without human bias, while controlling and performing routes remotely across plants, sites or different regions.
For manufacturing, power and utility generation, mining and chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear customers who want to maintain peak performance of their assets, while reducing risk and maintaining compliance, the Iris Explorer Spot Payload enables users to cover more assets in a fraction of the time, allowing for more asset coverage, while acquiring more diverse and consistent data at reduced human risk.
