Release 24.07 – New Stair Climbing Policy and Improvements to Low Battery and Docking Behaviors

We are happy to announce that Release 24.07 is now available for your ANYmal. Here, you will find additional information about what’s new in both 24.06 and 24.07. Most notably, Operators can look forward to:

• An improved stair-climbing policy
• New features and updates to the Workforce app
• Improvements to low battery and docking behaviors

This release comes with a PDB firmware update. See the Operator’s Manual for instructions on how to perform this update.

If you’d like to read the technical notes on both 24.06 and 24.07, you can find them here and here. Updated SDK documentation can be found here.

ANYmal now obtains its environment only from the navigation computer (NPC). You no longer need to synchronize environment folders between the locomotion computer (LPC) and the NPC.

This update optimizes environment data consistency and eases the procedure for Operators.
Before you update to this release, verify that your environment data is synchronized with the NPC. This ensures that your information is up to date and avoids inconsistencies.

To improve mission editing, Operators can now clone point of interest (POI) objects in the Workforce app. On the 3D map, click the object that you want to clone and then select Clone.

The cloned object automatically takes the name of the selected object with the word “Clone” appended to its name. Duplicate points of interest have the same coordinates as the original, except on the Y axis, where it’s shifted by 0.3 meters.

For more information, see “Clone items from the map display” in the Operator’s Manual.

In autonomous missions, ANYmal now performs automatic recovery behaviors when it detects unhealthy near-field map data. First, the robot will refresh the near field map by triggering a sequence of torso movements that aim to improve the data from ANYmal’s depth cameras and LIDAR unit.

The next recovery behavior restarts the near field map software and the last restarts the depth cameras before refreshing the data. After a third unsuccessful attempt, the mission fails and a pop-up message appears saying that the near field mapping is unhealthy. This behavior is enabled by default.

Added the Environment API calls, which you can use to create, delete, and load environments. You can find these API calls in the common.proto package. For more information, see “anymal_api_proto/environment.proto” in the ANYmal SDK documentation.

Updated ANYmal’s stair-climbing ability through a new control policy. This improves the way that ANYmal ascends and descends stairs and can be directly observed by the way that ANYmal places its feet and moves its legs when operating in stair climbing mode. This update increases robustness and overall reliability, reduces slips and stuck feet on uneven steps, and improves handling when manually controlling the robot, especially when turning.

This new stair climbing has been tested extensively in-house and in industrial environments; there is no need to change any configuration in your environment. However, please observe closely the first time that ANYmal autonomously climbs each defined stair in your environment. In rare cases, you might need to adapt your existing waypoints. If you experience any complications or unexpected behavior, please contact ANYbotics support.

Now, you cannot dock ANYmal if it isn’t localized in the operation environment. If ANYmal isn’t localized, the docking command fails. This update was made to avoid the robot acting autonomously when it’s not localized, which could cause unexpected motions from the user. Now, before you configure a docking station in an operation environment, ensure that the robot is localized. For more information on docking, see the following topics in the Operator’s Manual:

• “Configure the docking station in the operation environment”
• “How to dock and undock the Robot using operational modes”

The resolution of the SLAM map visualization on the operator computer GUI has been lowered to match the resolution displayed in the Workforce app. This change was needed to allow for operation in larger environments. However, there are still two available options that you can use to visualize high-resolution maps up to a certain size:

• In the 3D visualization’s display settings, select “Active Map for Localization” to show a high-resolution map around the robot’s current location.
• In the “SLAM Maps Merger” application, load and visualize a local version of the SLAM map.

Now, ANYmal must be within three meters of the waypoints graph to navigate along waypoints when running missions or when using the interaction marker’s Go Here (Along Waypoints) or Go Here (Straight Line) actions. If the robot is more than three meters outside of the waypoints graph, it cannot run autonomous tasks (that is, the task will fail). Additionally, tasks will also fail if the navigation goal deviates more than three meters from the waypoints graph. This limits the length of the path that is not along waypoint edges and reduces the chance of unsafe behavior that can occur in untested terrain.

Now, when you activate the GUI cut power, the protective stop (p-stop) is engaged, the actuators aren’t supplied with power, and the robot collapses. Depending on the work environment, this might cause injury to people in the vicinity and damage the robot. Use the cut power slider only in emergency situations.

For more information, see “GUI cut power” in the Operator’s Manual.

Now, when a fire extinguisher inspection task detects a fire extinguisher but with a certainty that’s below the minimum threshold, it returns an anomaly instead of a failure. For more information, see “Inspection intelligence tasks” in the Operator’s Manual.

ANYmal now has three low battery thresholds that influence its behavior during missions:

• Warning: Occurs when the battery reaches 20%.
• Error: Occurs when the battery reaches 5%. Any ongoing mission is canceled and ANYmal tries to dock. If it can’t dock, ANYmal goes into rest operational mode.
• Critical: Occurs when the battery reaches 2%. Any ongoing mission is canceled and ANYmal goes into sleep operational mode.

Fixed a bug that caused the ANYmal simulation to show incorrect battery levels.

Fixed a bug that caused fire extinguisher detection to return an anomaly when an extinguisher was properly detected.

Fixed a bug that prevented the robot from charging properly after the docking task was preempted.

Fixed a bug that caused the zoom camera stream in Workforce to change size depending on connection quality.