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Spot at Ontario Power Generation

Automating Circuit Breaker Tripping and Racking

September 14, 2023

There are an estimated 30,000 instances of arc flash each year in the United States alone, and one to two fatalities occur daily in North America. Ontario Power Generation (OPG) has five Boston Dynamics’ Spot robots deployed throughout their Enterprise Innovation division.

In 2022, the team sought to see if Spot’s dexterous arm could be used to assist in tripping and racking out a 600 volt breaker—an activity that is high risk for arc flash. Now, Boston Dynamics engineers have taken this application to the next level by fully automating the procedure.

Spot can perform the entire operation autonomously, with a human issuing high level commands safely out of harm’s way.

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What’s New in Spot Release 3.3
Spot at Ontario Power Generation

Lights, Camera, Sensing! The industry standard for dangerous and routine autonomous inspections just got better, now with a brand new set of features and hardware.

Boston Dynamics announces brand new features and hardware for Spot, an industry standard for dangerous and routine autonomous inspections. Critical industrial tasks like thermal monitoring, acoustic leak detection, and gauge reading are made easier through our automated inspection solutions.

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