Runner-up · Robotics · Industrial inspection
Inspection robots gain credentials for locked plant doors.
An ANYmal inspection robot used a secure digital credential to authenticate and pass controlled doors autonomously during a multiweek pilot at GE Vernova’s Whitegate Power Station in Ireland.
ANYbotics integrated its quadruped with dormakaba’s door automation and access-management environment and LEGIC’s digital credential. The plant applies the same authorization rules and audit trail used for personnel, allowing the robot to request entry, cross a secured boundary and resume its inspection route without an operator opening the door.
The partners say the system operated for several weeks in the live power station. The configuration is now available on request, with a broader rollout planned for 2027. No reliability rate, number of doors, route-completion gain or cyber assessment was published.
Read original story ↗01
What changed
Autonomous inspection robots could already walk stairs and traverse complex plants, but closed or access-controlled doors still trapped them or forced human intervention. What changed is live validation of a robot identity and door-control integration at a named operating power station, followed by availability as a fleet add-on.
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Why it matters
Facility-wide inspection autonomy depends as much on access governance as locomotion. A robot that cannot cross fire, security or process-zone doors has fragmented coverage and still needs people to keep routes open. Integrating the machine with existing credentials lets operators preserve authorization rules and audit trails while extending thermal, acoustic, gas and visual inspection across more of a plant. It also creates a new OT-security responsibility: robot identities need least-privilege access, revocation, incident response and lifecycle management. The pilot is meaningful because it ran in a live power station, but broader value depends on reliable operation across more doors, sites and access systems.
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What to watch
Watch for the 2027 rollout, additional named plants, route-completion and intervention data, cyber and safety certification, credential-revocation tests and support for multiple access-control vendors.
Why it was a runner-up
The power-station pilot solves a concrete autonomy bottleneck and is moving toward a fleet add-on, but evidence is limited to one site and several weeks of operation.
Impact: 81/100 · Confidence: 89/100
ANYbotics and dormakaba identify the live site, integration roles and operating period, and several industrial publications independently confirm the pilot. Confidence is moderated by the lack of quantified reliability, coverage and cybersecurity results.
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