Briggs & Stratton, an American multinational which produces engines, says it is breaking new ground in the robotics field, as it works with Advanced Robotic Engineering (ARE) to power their range of mobile industrial demolition robots with the Vanguard 48V Si1.5kWh swappable and 48V Fi3.5kWh fixed battery packs. Vanguard is part of the Briggs & Stratton group.
For many years, onsite workers have struggled with needing their demolition machines to be cable powered when moving from one site to another. While one operator controlled the machine, another assisted on navigating the cable.
As a consequence, moving machines was not only complicated and time consuming, but also required the involvement of several people at the job site. A disaster in an industry where uptime is everything and the reduction of total cost of ownership crucial.
In search of a more efficient operational solution, and after consultation with their technical partner aDrive, ARE turned to Briggs & Stratton for the company’s extensive Vanguard-branded commercial battery range.
Dawid Majchrzak, CEO of aDrive, says: “ARE originally designed their own custom battery, and used it during the early stages of the project. Seeing how safe Vanguard batteries are and how they perform in the most extreme operating conditions, ARE decided to integrate Vanguard into their design.”
While the large ARE 3.0 is powered by Vanguard’s 48V Fi3.5kWh fixed battery, allowing the demolition robot to operate on job sites for up to 30 minutes, the smaller ARE 1.0 and 2.0 models run on a 48V Si1.5kWh swappable battery.
This feature provides additional operational flexibility through interchangeability, as a discharged Si1.5 battery can be easily swapped with a fully charged one. No matter which battery they use, all three models improve efficiency for the operator and free up co-workers to complete other activities.
The Vanguard battery solution is instrumental in providing a practical and innovative answer to current jobsite challenges, enabling seamless movement between different locations or floors, even navigating stairs.
This flexibility is particularly advantageous when deploying the robot for diverse tasks, necessitating its transport to various construction sites.
While the actual demolition process still works on cable, the ARE robots furthermore stand out as the only machines on the market that allow users to simultaneously operate the robot and charge the integrated Vanguard battery pack for further movement.
This feature additionally reduces overall downtime, enabling more efficient operation in various work settings.
Krzysztof Jakubowski, CEO of Advanced Robotic Engineering (ARE), says: “We’ve calculated that in a typical eight-hour working day, robot operators can save at least one hour by using this ARE/Vanguard hybrid system compared to only cable-operated robots.
Jakubowski demonstrated the new battery and says this new innovation will revolutionise the efficiency of demolition workers in the future.
Ladislav Poledna, business development manager electrification/rental EMEA for Briggs & Stratton / Vanguard, says: “We are extremely proud of our game-changing technology and even more excited to have had it integrated into innovative industry-leading products like the ARE demolition robots. What belongs together comes together.”
Jakubowski says: “Integrating Vanguard batteries in our demolition robots is an exciting industry-first innovation for the construction industry. This new hybrid robot will enable end users to complete tasks in a time effective manner and without charging downtime.
“We are looking forward to seeing the reaction from the industry and getting the feedback from operators.”
Based on this improvement, ARE is currently developing a pioneering operator-as-a-service concept to increase the added value provided.
With this concept, machines will in the future be remote controlled by experts all over the world without the necessity to have them on the working site.
