A robot arm turning a valve underwater! 🌊
@ReachRobotics builds manipulators for ROVs, and the thing that makes them interesting is the actuation.
Subsea arms have traditionally been hydraulic. That means an oil power pack, a lot of mass, and a work-class ROV big enough to carry all of it.
Turning a single valve could mean mobilising a vessel.
Reach's arms are all electric. Their Bravo weighs 4.5 kg in water, effectively neutrally buoyant, and still lifts more than 10 kg, rated to 450 metres of seawater.
Control is the other half of it. A master arm with one-to-one joint matching for fine work, space-mouse command pods for driving two manipulators at once, and a 3D visualisation layer over the top.
What electric actuation really unlocks is reach, in the commercial sense. Intervention used to belong to the big work-class vehicles.
A capable arm at 4.5 kg moves cutting, grabbing, recovery and valve work onto a far cheaper platform.
Built in Australia 🇦🇺
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