Robotics engineers have long awaited the day they could control an agile robot like Boston Dynamics’ Spot from a distance, only without the choppy video and command delays with latency common on public cellular networks. At the National Robotarium in Edinburgh, Scotland, researchers have solved this problem by using their own private 5G network. Powered by Starlink satellite internet, the system allows operators to control Spot across remote test sites and observe real-time video footage and data from miles away.

“From our point of view, there’s not many people doing this over 5G, especially at the scale we have,” said Matthew O’Hara, a robotics engineer at the Robotarium.

Faster speeds, greater coverage

5G offers higher-frequency bands that can transmit data five to 10 times faster than 4G systems, with lower latency. The platform also supports more devices per square kilometer than its predecessors. The new 5G network is poised to spark a host of new research involving Spot and other robots.

“We have our own server rack and our own antennas that we control,” said O’Hara. “It’s basically like having a massive Wi-Fi network we can pop up and deploy anywhere.”

A national lab for robotics innovation

Located on the campus of Heriot-Watt University, the £22.4 million Robotarium opened in 2022 with funding from a £1.5 billion City Region Deal backed by the UK and Scottish governments, along with six regional authorities. Its mission is to drive innovation, support startups, and connect advanced robotics to real-world industry.

Man explaining Spot the robot to a group of people standing in a field

With 35 full-time staff, the facility serves as the applied R&D hub of the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics, a joint venture between Heriot-Watt and the University of Edinburgh. While the ECR taps academic expertise from both universities, the 40,000 square foot space provides critical lab space where student and faculty researchers can test prototypes and applications alongside its dedicated team of Robotics Engineers who work in collaboration with industry partners. The facility currently hosts 14 startup and spinout robotics companies, which together employ an additional 60 employees.

“The global robotics market is poised for explosive growth, from $72 billion in 2022 to an estimated $283 billion by 2032,” said National Robotarium CEO Stewart Miller. “This represents an unprecedented opportunity for economic growth and job creation.”

The case for Spot

Prior to the Robotarium’s construction, Heriot-Watt faculty had already begun experimenting with three Spot units. Their third robot, the Enterprise model, came equipped with a 5G-capable modem, making it an ideal candidate to test what private 5G could deliver.

“We very quickly came to the conclusion that Spot would be the best fit. Spot seems to be one of very few robots that is actually 5G-capable. It ticks all of the boxes and it was easy to set up.”

Matthew O’Hara, robotics engineer

While Wi-Fi remains the most common way to connect robots indoors, its range is limited. With 5G, the team can stream live video and send commands to Spot with virtually no lag.

“With Wi-Fi, you’d need access points all along the route to keep a signal,” said Taylor Kuck, a technical support engineer at Boston Dynamics. “That’s not realistic at all for the kind of applications we’re talking about. With 5G, the robot can be miles away from the control center and still stay connected.”

Full network control

Rather than being limited on public 5G, the Robotarium team worked with Freshwave to build their private network for maximum flexibility and control. They can place antennas wherever needed, while easily locating and managing each device connected to the system.

“If it’s public 5G, they have control over the entire network, whereas we can customize our private network, shape it to how we want, how we need to use it,” said O’Hara. “We control all the network traffic. We know what each device is, where it is, what gets sent to it. We can also control bandwidth and throughput.”

The 5G project itself was supported by the Tay Cities Deal and funded by the Scottish and UK Government. A portion of the funding stream was administered by the James Hutton Institute, a research center based in Invergowrie, a community north of Edinburgh, specializing in agriculture and environmental sustainability.

A firmware fix opens the door

The Robotarium team first tested the 5G network in-house. Connecting Spot took some fine-tuning, however. Its onboard modem initially didn’t recognize the required 5G band, and O’Hara reached out to Kuck for assistance. Kuck’s team identified the need for firmware update and coordinated with the modem manufacturer to implement it.

“Eventually we discovered we needed a compatibility update for these brand new private 5G networks,” said Kuck. “We had to peel back the layers in the Spot stack and pinpoint exactly where the issue was. Bridging that compatibility gap was critical. It enabled all these other projects to start.”

Group of people gathered around the robot Spot standing in a field

Spot in the crops

Once the connection was live, O’Hara and fellow engineer Coena Das began developing field applications. One involved O’Hara sending Spot to a remote agricultural site to take photos of berry crops over time using Orbit, Boston Dynamics’ fleet management software.

“We couldn’t have done it over Wi-Fi because the range just wouldn’t have worked,” said O’Hara. “We had Spot in these fields kilometers away.”

Controlling Spot via VR

In another project, funded by the Scotland 5G Centre, the national centre for accelerating the deployment and adoption of 5G connectivity in Scotland’s Industry and Public Sectors, Das developed a virtual reality interface that allows users to control Spot while wearing a Meta Quest 3 headset. Over three months, she built a custom UI that displays Spot’s camera views, navigation waypoints, and 3D position on a point cloud map in a fully immersive environment. Das and O’Hara tested the responsiveness of the 5G network by placing Spot in an outdoor test area on campus equipped with dummy valves, gauges, temperature sensors, and physical obstacles, such as stairs, demonstrating the potential for ultra-low latency robotic control in industrial applications.

Man wearing a VR headset and using handheld controllers to remotely operate a Spot robot

Within the UI, users can select preprogrammed missions, as well as give Spot verbal commands. In this case, Spot was equipped with a 360° high definition camera, but it’s capable of carrying additional payloads, including a thermal camera, lidar unit, and an acoustic sensor. Das and O’Hara imagine incorporating these sensors into the UI in the future. For now, their goal is to test the feasibility of using VR to guide Spot through complex tasks.

“The UI creates a digital twin of the real robot, so it can see where it is on the map,” said Das. “The project is still in the initial phases, but later on we’re going to try and make it more dynamic.”

Testing today, planning for tomorrow

According to O’Hara, the 5G initiative is already attracting outside interest from manufacturers, farmers, and robotics startups alike. The potential for innovation is tremendous.

“This sort of feasibility testing shows us what is possible,” said O’Hara.

Photos courtesy of Ben Glasgow c/o The National Robotarium