Clearpath Robotics discusses development of Husky A300 ground vehicle
The Husky A300 is designed to be tougher and have longer endurance than the A200. Source: Clearpath Robotics
Developers of robots for indoor or outdoor use have a new platform to build on. In October, Clearpath Robotics Inc. released the Husky A300, the latest version of its flagship mobile robot for research and development. The Waterloo, Ontario-based company said it has improved the system’s speed, weather resistance, payload capacity, and runtime.
“Husky A200 has been on the market for over 10 years,” said Robbie Edwards, director of technology at Clearpath Robotics. “We have lots of experience figuring out what people want. We’ve had different configurations, upgrades, batteries and chargers, computers, and motors.”
“We’ve also had different configurations of the internal chassis and ingress protection, as well as custom payloads,” he told The Robot Report. “A lot of that functionality that you had to pay to add on is now stock.”
Husky A300 hardware is rugged, faster
The Husky A300 includes a high-torque drivetrain with four brushless motors that enable speeds of up to 2 m/s (4.4 mph), twice as fast as the previous version. It can carry payloads up to 100 kg (220.4 lb.) and has a runtime of up to 12 hours, said Clearpath Robotics.
The company, which Rockwell Automation acquired last year, noted that the platform can integrate third-party components and accessories including depth cameras, directional lidar, dual-antenna GPS, and manipulators. Husky A300 has an IP54 rating against dust and water and can withstand industrial environments or extreme temperatures outdoors, it said.
“Before, the Husky was configured on a bespoke basis,” said Edwards. “Now we’re off at a more competitive price, which is great for our customers, and it now comes off our production line instead of our integration line.”
Founded in 2009, the company has tested its hardware and software near its office in a wide range of weather conditions.
Clearpath’s integration with Rockwell has gone smoothly so far, with Rockwell’s procurement team easing access to components and manufacturing, said Edwards. He observed that some of Rockwell’s customers in mining or other industrial automation could find new use cases in time.
The Husky A300 can withstand dust and temperature variances. Source: Clearpath Robotics
Clearpath includes ROS 2 support with A300
Husky A300 ships with Robot Operating System (ROS) 2 Jazzy plus demonstrations of Nav2, MoveIt 2, and other developer utilities.
“Over the past two years, there was a big push to get all Clearpath products to ROS 2 Humble because its configuration management system made life easier for our integration team and customers,” recalled Edwards. “We also provide support for simulation, and URDF [Unified Robot Description Format] is configured.”
Many of Clearpath’s R&D customers were familiar with ROS, C++, and Python, so it offered visualization and simulation tools in addition to the ROS stack, he added. However, as the company got non-expert customers, it wanted to enable them to also work with Husky.
“Academics who aren’t roboticists but want to do data collection can now do so with a simple Python interface, without learning ROS,” Edwards said. “We’ve maintained a level of flexibility with integrating different payloads and compute options while still giving a pretty good price point and usability.”
Husky AMP a ‘turnkey’ option
Clearpath Robotics is offering a “turnkey” version of the robot dubbed Husky AMP, or autonomous mobile platform. It comes with a sensor suite for navigation, pre-installed and configured OutdoorNav software, a Web-based user interface, and an optional wireless charging dock.
“Robotics developers can easily integrate payloads onto the mounting deck, carry out a simple software integration through the OutdoorNav interface, and get their system working in the field faster and more efficiently,” said Clearpath.
“We’ve lowered the barrier to entry by providing all software function calls and a navigation stack,” Edwards asserted. “The RTK [real-time kinematic positioning] GPS is augmented with sensor fusion, including wheel odometry, and visual and lidar sensors.”
“With a waypoint following system, the robotics stack does the path planning, which is constrained and well-tested,” he said. “Non-roboticists can use Husky A300 as a ground drone.”
More robot enhancements, use cases to come
Clearpath Robotics is considering variant drive trains for the Husky A300, such as tracks for softer terrain as in agriculture, said Edwards.
“Husky is a general-purpose platform,” he said. “We’re serving outdoors developers rather than end users directly, but there’s a lot of demand for larger, high-endurance materials transport.”
For the A300, the company surveyed its client base, which came back with 150 use cases.
“I’ve seen lots of cool stuff — robots herding animals, helping to grow plants, working in mines, participating in the DARPA Subterranean Challenge in fleets of Husky and [Boston Dynamics’] Spot,” Edwards said. “Husky Observer conducts inspections of sites such as solar farms.”
“The benefits for industrial users also help researchers,” he said. “Making the robot cheaper to deploy for faster time to value also means better battery life, weatherproofing, and integrations.”
Edwards added that Clearpath has received a lot of interest in mobile manipulation with its Ridgeback omnidirectional platform.
“This trend is finding its way outdoors as well,” he said. “On the application engineering side, developers have put put two large Universal Robots arms on our Warthog UGV [uncrewed ground vehicle] for things like changing tires.”
The Husky A300 can carry different sensor payloads or robotic arms. Source: Clearpath Robotics
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