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Nov 13 (Reuters) \u2013 Boston Dynamics\u2019 dog-like robot \u2018Spot\u2019 is learning new tricks.<\/p>\n
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Working on an oil rig operated by BP Plc nearly 190 miles (305 km) offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, the company is programming Spot to read gauges, look for corrosion, map out the facility and even sniff out methane on its Mad Dog rig.<\/p>\n
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Adam Ballard, BP\u2019s facilities technology manager, said tasks performed by Spot will make the work on the rig safer by reducing the number of people. It also will free up personnel to do other work.<\/p>\n
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\u201cSeveral hours a day, several operators will walk the facility; read gauges; listen for noise that doesn\u2019t sound right; look out at the horizon for anomalies, boats that may not be caught on radar; look for sheens,\u201d Ballard said.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWhat we\u2019re doing with Spot is really trying to replicate that observation piece,\u201d Ballard said, adding that an operator could then review the information from a central location.<\/p>\n
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Spot also has an integrated gas sensor that is programmed to shut the robot down if it detects a methane leak.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe believe a lot of that up-front, remote work preparation can be done with a remotely-controlled robot\u2026 being able to pan, tilt, zoom and really understand the entire area in real conditions, real time,\u201d Ballard said.<\/p>\n
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Boston Dynamics does not release terms of its sales agreements with companies, but the Spot robot model can be purchased for $74,500.<\/p>\n
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BP hopes in the future to expand Spot\u2019s data gathering capability to augment areas where humans are limited.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe\u2019ve got multispectral imaging that basically you can see many bands across that spectrum\u2026 to be able to see things that the human eye can\u2019t see,\u201d said Ballard. (Reporting by Catherine Koppel; editing by Diane Craft and Rosalba O\u2019Brien)<\/p>\n
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(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2020.<\/em> <\/p>\n gCaptain<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nov 13 (Reuters) \u2013 Boston Dynamics\u2019 dog-like robot \u2018Spot\u2019 is learning new tricks. Working on an oil rig operated by BP Plc nearly 190 miles (305 km) offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, the company is programming Spot to read gauges, look for corrosion, map out the facility and even sniff out methane on its …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21415,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[5857,9896,7935,1131,166,1957,5446,5067,13352],"class_list":["post-21414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marine-world","tag-boston","tag-dynamics","tag-learning","tag-offshore","tag-oil","tag-rig","tag-robot","tag-spot","tag-tricks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/21415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}