Ouster lidar for Gecko robots improves detect and repair

When lidar and robots work in tandem, that creates a super hero for inspections of buildings, bridges, planes and ships.

That’s what Ouster and Gecko Robotics are up to with ‘detect and repair” missions for their customers. 

On Thursday, Outser announced Gecko is using its Rev8 lidar sensors to provide data for Gecko’s Cantilever operation platform. Using Rev8 offers the opportunity to “push the boundaries of Gecko’s detect and repair missions,” Ouster said in a statement.

Rev8 means more reliable inspections, since it can output colorized, structured 3D data alongside ambient infrared and intensity data. In turn, Gecko’s AI software can more easily detect structural anomalies that were previously hard to visualize.

“Ouster’s Rev8 lidars represents a massive leap in sensing capability,” said Chase David, Forward-Deployed Engineer at Gecko.  He said capturing every 3D point in full color with greater precision will allow Gecko software to map the physical world and also understand asset health “with better certainty and deliver more actionable data to our customers.”

All this sounds good, but what it mainly says is that a lidar, or any sensor really, actually represents a coveted data stream, which is what hungry AI systems need to make decisions and offer insights.

The partnership between the two companies results in high-fidelity digital twins that industrial and military customers can use for making predictions about the health of assets, from buildings to planes and more.  Gecko’s wall-climbing robots, like the Komodo, are expected to use the Rev8 lidar and the two companies released a photo of the Komodo equipped with Rev8. 

 The sensors will assist Gecko in creating precise, millimeter-accurate 3D digital twins of aircraft, pipelines, power plants and naval vessels.  The information can be used to map corrosion progression, which helps operators make immediate local repairs instead of risking total structural failure.  

Ouster’s primary direct competitors are companies including Luminar and Innoviz, but also Hesai Group and RoboSense, both based in China.

Gecko recently released a video describing its Komodo robotics: