Of the many considerations in planning the cars of the future is planning out the production facilities of the future. How they will look and operate is one of the core considerations for efficient manufacturing, and virtual assembly is a key ingredient in the planning phase which removes the need to build prototypes in the planning process.

Virtual assembly planning not only saves material resources but also makes innovative, flexible collaboration possible across different locations. To do this requires a scanning process to generate three-dimensional point clouds that can be used to virtually reverse engineer machines and infrastructure. The software is based on artificial intelligence and machine learning.

This is where Spot comes into the picture – a robot dog that produces 3D scans of massive production facilities in a fraction of the time it would take a person.

The Scanning of 100,000 square metres in the Audi A6 production at Neckarsulm for example,  takes about three weeks in single-shift operation. The scans can only be done at night or on weekends and on top of that, structural obstacles like steps and doors make scanning work more difficult.

For Spot though, the same task takes just 48 hours and he is able to figure out his route autonomously – and stairs don't trouble him at all. The tests using the robot dog have been ongoing since 2021 and the results are extremely promising according to project manager Andrés Kohler.

“Merging all the planning data in our digital twin has given us a holistic look at our future production plans years ahead of time,” he explains. Like in a real factory, it includes the shop floor, conveyor technology, tools, shelving, and containers alongside the new Audi model.

It’s just another way technology – in they case AI and robotics – are being employed to not only create the vehicles of tomorrow, but the very production facilities that will create them.