VISION

The next major step in robot evolution will see robots leaving the structured factory environment. This requires versatile and highly mobile mechanical devices to move and operate autonomously in unstructured environments, collaborating with humans where needed.

As a consequence, robot capabilities will be massively improved in three areas:

Mobility: Cope with steps or gaps, obstacles and rough terrain
Interaction: Collaborate safely with humans or work in unstructured environment
Autonomy: Execute service tasks without assistance while reacting on changing environment

ANYbotics develops unique solutions to all of the above three challenges. We provide the market with unique products, each one providing its own customer benefits:

the mobile robot system ANYmal, an electrically driven four-legged autonomous robot platform satisfying the most advanced mobility requirements
the robot joint ANYdrive, an joint actuator unit satisfying the most advanced interaction requirements for any robot-like device
the legged robot’s brain ANYbalance, a balancing control software that optimally distributes ground contact forces and thereby maximizes stability and safety of any legged or wheeled active suspension system operating in rough terrain.

HISTORY

ANYbotics AG was founded in 2016 by a group of ETH Zurich engineers. It is a spin-off company of the Robotic Systems Lab (RSL), ETH Zurich, receiving support from the Wyss Translational Center, Zurich, the Gebert Rüf Foundation and the NCCR Robotics Spin Fund, as well as the ESA Business Incubation Centre, Switzerland.

Since 2009, around 100 man years of extensive and focused research on legged robotic systems in one of the leading research institutes in the world went into the development of ANYmal and its component products. The research started in the legged robotics group at the Autonomous Systems Lab (ASL), ETH Zurich and was continued at the RSL. The performance of the actuation system, of the balancing control, and of the entire legged robot was demonstrated to the research community and improved over several years, first on the early StarlETH platform and later on ANYmal.

ANYmal’s capability to navigate and move dynamically in very challenging terrain was demonstrated for the first time by its participation in the ARGOS challenge organized by the French oil & gas group Total. There, numerous advanced autonomous surveillance and intervention tasks need to be completed safely on a replica of a multi-floor industrial oil & gas platform in a potentially hazardous offshore environment.

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