ANYbotics Ships Its Explosion-Rated Robot Dog, Certified for Zones 1 and 2 but Not for Hydrogen
Hardware / news
ANYbotics Ships Its Explosion-Rated Robot Dog, Certified for Zones 1 and 2 but Not for Hydrogen
ANYmal X began customer deliveries on October 27. ANYbotics' product page limits it to gas group IIB, and says IECEx certification arrives with first production, a gap the launch coverage does not mention.
ANYbotics began shipping the ANYmal X on October 27, 2026, calling it the world's first legged inspection robot for explosive atmospheres. Equinor and DSM-Firmenich are among the first customers, according to SiliconANGLE.
The launch coverage says the robot complies with ATEX in Europe and IECEx globally. ANYbotics' own ANYmal X product page is more specific, and narrower.
The photograph above shows the earlier ANYmal D in a substation, not the explosion-rated X.
What the product page certifies
The page lists ATEX Zone 1 and Zone 2, with an EU-type examination certificate issued by Bureau Veritas. It says the robot is not intended for Zone 0 or for explosive dust atmospheres. The gas group is IIB, not IIC, and the page names hydrogen and acetylene as the IIC gases outside its scope. The temperature class is T4, the equipment protection level is Gb and the category is 2G.
On IECEx, the page says certification "will be available with first production." That sits awkwardly beside the launch-day claim of global compliance. The page also marks every specification as preliminary and points readers to the product certificate and user manual for approved ratings.
| Item | Product page value |
|---|---|
| ATEX zones | 1 and 2 (not 0, not dust) |
| Gas group | IIB (not IIC: hydrogen, acetylene) |
| Temperature class | T4 |
| Ingress protection | IP65 robot, IP67 payload |
| Ambient range | -10 to 50 °C |
| Runtime | More than 3 hours per charge |
How the robot is built to avoid igniting a plant
Per The Robot Report, the AI computer and inspection equipment sit in nitrogen-filled sealed chambers. All 12 leg actuators and the battery have flameproof casings. Charging and data use energy barriers so that no connection is exposed to the hazardous area, and non-metallic shells and conductive feet handle insulation and grounding.
The sensors are a protected pan-tilt zoom camera, a 640 x 512 radiometric thermal camera, an acoustic imager and a microphone, with an optional gas-sensing module, per the product page. Weight, speed and price are not given on that page or in either news report.
"Many experts thought a legged robot could never be made safe for explosive atmospheres," said Péter Fankhauser, co-founder and chief executive of ANYbotics. Thierry Obédé, the company's chief revenue officer, said "a certified robot is only the entry ticket for inspecting oil, gas, and chemicals facilities."
Who has used it, and how many
BP, Equinor, Shell, Petronas, Petrobras, BASF and SLB tested earlier versions from 2023 through an early access program, across hundreds of onshore and offshore missions, according to The Robot Report. ANYbotics says more than 50 power, metals and materials customers use the broader ANYmal system, which runs more than 120,000 autonomous inspections a month. Those are company-supplied figures for the earlier robot, not for the X.
ANYbotics spun out of ETH Zurich in 2016 and says it has raised more than $150 million and employs about 200 people in Zurich, San Francisco and Barcelona. SiliconANGLE cites Fortune Business Insights putting global oil-and-gas inspection robotics at roughly $800 million to $1 billion a year.
For how robot orders look in factories rather than refineries, see our analysis of A3's third-quarter data, and for the money behind the category, Crunchbase's robotics funding figures.
The date to watch is the arrival of the IECEx certificate the product page promises for first production. Until it appears, buyers outside ATEX jurisdictions, and anyone with hydrogen on site, are working from a narrower certificate than the launch headlines describe.
Sources
- 01ANYmal X
More in Hardware
- 01Washington Finds Robot Imports a Security Threat and Sets No Tariff, Date or Product ListThe October 28 Section 232 proclamation orders negotiations rather than duties, so the cost of the finding sits in components nobody has priced yet.
- 02Electric Trucks Hit 50.3% of China Heavy-Truck Sales in September, in a Market Down 21%September sits below the December 2025 peak of 53.9%, and electric sales grew 37% while total sales fell, and the 2026 year-to-date figure is 38.1%.
- 03Ola Electric Registered 12,096 Scooters in October, Down 10%, as India Added 7% to 223,847Entrackr and Autocar Professional use different Vahan pulls for September, which moves the growth figure from 7.3% to about 10%.
- 04Battery Self-Tests Cause a One-Minute Dip in Grid Frequency, and Jülich Measured It on a 1.5 MW UnitA Forschungszentrum Jülich team traced a worldwide 60-second ripple in grid frequency to battery power supplies that all test themselves at the top of the minute. The preprint measured one site; the scale claims come from a press release.