The Occupational Safety and Health Administration lists a number of hazards for workers that conduct inspections at oil and gas tanks. These include fire, explosion, asphyxiation, toxicity, entrapment, falls and physical and chemical hazards including steam, heat, noise, cold and electrical shock.
Is this a job that could use robotic automation? One Seaport District startup thinks so.
Square Robot, which launched from stealth last week with $12 million in venture funding, is building robots that can replace humans in hazardous subsea environments. Backed by Philips 66 as an early investor, the company's Series B round was led by ARA Partners and Next47, which is a global venture firm backed by Siemens.
"Inspecting tanks is dangerous, nasty and expensive to make safe," said Eric Levitt, co-founder and CEO of Square Robot. "That's why we're taking humans out of the equation."
Square Robot was founded in May 2016 by former executives at Bluefin Robotics. That company, based in Quincy, develops, manufactures and operates autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and related unmanned underwater technologies for defense, commercial and scientific customers. Levitt and two other executives left the company following Bluefin's acquisition by Virginia-based aerospace and defense giant General Dynamics. Since their departure, they have been joined by 11 other ex-Bluefin people.
Levitt and his contemporaries founded Square Robot immediately after the acquisition to channel their energy and expertise into something new. Today, the startup consists of subsea roboticists, software and field engineers, and is headquartered in Boston, with a service center in Houston. The Boston team builds the robots, and the team in Houston works closely with its deployment and clientele — oil and gas companies in Texas. The company already works with P66, Chevron and Magellan to name a few, and has ongoing pilot projects with companies including ExxonMobil and Marathon.
Its first product, run by Square Robot's wholly-owned subsidiary, Veritank, is a robot called SR-1.
It is a 4-foot-long cylindrical robot designed to enter oil and gas tanks. Once inside the tank, it flies through the fluid, maps its way through it, settles on the floor, rolls around using a propeller and scans the entire tank. This untethered equipment can plan and execute missions that involve testing the floors for corrosion and defects.
"Our value proposition is pretty straightforward," said Levitt. "There is a large population of tanks, and they require inspections every 10 to 20 years. It's a dangerous job for humans, and our robots execute the task perfectly fine."
The startup has already made strides in the field with one registered patent and 11 others pending. Now, it is on a mission to automate subsea vehicles for different applications.
"I’ve seen problems people try to solve by putting sensors, and not with end-to-end solutions," Levitt said. "Once we have the brain, we can take that to a different form factor and apply it to different applications."
Levitt said the company will use the funds from the Series A and B rounds to take the 10 robots it's developed to the market. He also hinted at raising a Series C round as early as this fall.
Square Robot's Boston office has 18 employees, and the Houston office houses a staff of 11. It plans to build a service team in Houston and increase headcount to 30.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIWjxP5RbjM&feature=youtu.be
