Moving from the farm to the lab, Antobot is now offering the Ant robot as a platform for research use. The first research-robot was recently supplied to Loughborough University, where Antobot team members, Dr Will Eaton and Zhuang Zhou, delivered a talk to students in the department of Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering. The event culminated in a demonstration, with a friendly up-hill race between Ant and Spot from Boston Dynamics.
The researchers: leading the way in autonomous systems
The Ant platform will be used by LUCAS (Loughborough University Centre for Autonomous Systems), a world-leading research group specialising in robotics and autonomous systems. Their research activities include numerous high profile multi-disciplinary projects - ranging from innovative autonomous control and robotic environmental monitoring, to pioneering agri-tech solutions for remote sensing of crop disease, UAV crop spraying and crop modelling.
“The new robot platform from Antobot Ltd provides us the endurance and versatility which we urgently need to support our research towards long-term autonomy in challenging farming environments” – Dr Cunjia Liu, LUCAS
The platform: modular and versatile
Primarily designed for agricultural use, the highly-robust Ant platform excels outdoors, and has been created with both versatility and affordability in mind. Incorporating a modular top plate, independent wheel motors, easy-swap batteries and RTK GNSS for high-precision outdoor-localisation, the Ant is capable of operating in tough environments. Each robot also includes Antobot’s universal Robot Control Unit (uRCU®) and SDK, allowing users to incorporate the platform into a wide variety of projects.
“We’ve really enjoyed working with Loughborough University and are excited to see what this talented team of researchers are able to do with our robot platform as the basis for their next projects” – Marc Jones, VP Antobot
If you are a researcher looking for your next R&D robot platform, then please get in touch with our team here: hello@antobot.ai
The Antobot team will also be exhibiting at this year’s flagship robotics conference ICRA from 29th May – 2nd June in London, come visit us at Stand E26!
