For a long time now, both industrial and infrastructure companies have sought ways to lower the risk of business disruption through visual monitoring of the site assets and infrastructure. As a result, many companies have begun integrating advanced autonomous air and ground robotic solutions into their operational awareness efforts.
Raised €38M funding
In this regard, Percepto, an Israeli startup is a developer of autonomous drone technology for inspection and surveillance. Recently, the company secured $45M (approx €38M) in Series B funding.
Who backed Percepto?
The round was led by Koch Disruptive Technologies (KDT). Other new and existing investors including State of Mind Ventures, Atento Capital, Summit Peak Investments, Delek-US, U.S. Venture Partners, Spider Capital, and Arkin Holdings, also participated in the funding. This brings the overall funding to $72.5M (approx €60M).
Automates inspection and monitoring workflows
Founded by Ariel Avitan, Dor Abuhasira, Raviv Raz, and Sagi Blonder, Percepto’s Autonomous Inspection & Monitoring (AIM) platform fully automates inspection and monitoring workflows allowing businesses to detect risks earlier, enhance measurement accuracy, spot trends easily, and gain better situational awareness.
Operating a fleet of third party robots alongside their autonomous Sparrow drone, Percepto AIM provides visual data management and analysis to report trends and anomalies and to alert of risks.
Deploy robots upon request
Any member of staff can request data, and Percepto AIM will deploy the most suitable robot without human accompaniment to retrieve and stream the required data. The platform also reports to assess risk, minimise downtime, drive efficiency, and reduce operational costs without human intervention.
“Our customers, which include some of the world’s leading utility, oil & gas sites, mining, and other critical infrastructure facilities, are eager to fully embrace automation across their operations and reap the benefits of driving efficiency, reducing costs, and safeguarding staff. We’re excited to be the first to empower our customers with truly autonomous inspection and monitoring, driven by the management of multiple visual robotic data sources together with other visual sources including piloted drones, CCTV and mobile cameras, on-site or remotely,” says Dor Abuhasira, CEO and Co-Founder Percepto.
Works with Spot, the robot dog
Spot, a robot dog, developed by Boston Dynamics that navigates through terrain is also integrated with AIM to automate inspection rounds completely controlled remotely via the platform.
Notably, the robot dog carries Percepto’s Sparrow for high-resolution imaging and thermal vision to detect issues including hot spots on machines or electrical conductors, water and steam leaks around plants and equipment with degraded performance, with the data relayed via AIM.
“Combining Percepto’s Sparrow drone with Spot creates a unique solution for remote inspection,” says Michael Perry, VP of Business Development at Boston Dynamics. “This partnership demonstrates the value of harnessing robotic collaborations and the insurmountable benefits to worker safety and cost savings that robotics can bring to industries that involve hazardous or remote work.”
Main image credits: Percepto