ANYbotics Teaches ANYmal Robots to Open Doors on Their Own

Closed doors have long been a hidden obstacle for mobile inspection robots working in energy, metals, mining, and chemical plants. ANYbotics says it has solved that problem by teaming up with door-hardware maker dormakaba and secure-credential specialist LEGIC Identsystems AG to give its ANYmal quadruped robots the ability to open doors on their own, as reported by The Robot Report.

For ordinary, unlocked doors, the fix is largely mechanical. When ANYmal approaches a door on its planned route, a radar sensor triggers a retrofitted dormakaba ED 100 or ED 250 swing-door operator. The door opens, the robot passes through, and it closes again behind it. ANYbotics says the operators work on existing doors and meet indoor, outdoor, and fire-rated specifications, without any structural changes. dormakaba's local teams handle the surveying, quoting, and installation for customers.

Locked and access-controlled doors require a more layered approach. ANYbotics supplies the mobile robot, LEGIC provides secure digital credential technology, and dormakaba contributes its exos access-management and door-automation systems. ANYmal carries a LEGIC security payload that gives it a trusted digital identity; when it reaches a protected doorway, it electronically requests access from dormakaba's exos system, which grants or denies entry based on predefined permissions tied to zones, time windows, or specific tasks.

ANYbotics product manager Jacob Euler-Rolle said the robot "inherits the facility's existing security protocols rather than replacing them," authenticating like a badged employee rather than bypassing existing anti-tailgating measures such as mantraps, interlocks, or guard checks. Every credential scan and transit is logged with a timestamp, which the company says creates a clearer audit trail than a manually propped-open door.

The system was tested for several weeks at GE Vernova's Whitegate Power Station in County Cork, Ireland, where ANYmal repeatedly requested access, passed through controlled doors, and completed inspection routes without manual intervention. "The door-passage solution allows ANYmal to move seamlessly between plant zones without compromising safety or security rules," said Brian Carroll, a maintenance engineer at GE Vernova Whitegate.

ANYbotics, dormakaba, and LEGIC executives framed the collaboration as a step toward extending access-control systems beyond people to autonomous machines. Mehdi Elhaoussine, general manager at LEGIC, called it a move to extend the company's secure credential technology "from people and objects to machines." dormakaba chief innovation officer David Fuller said access management is becoming "an important enabler for the next generation of industrial automation."

Spun out of ETH Zurich in 2016, ANYbotics has raised more than $150 million to date and employs about 200 people. The company positions ANYmal for routine inspections, remote operations, and predictive maintenance, arguing the robots can reduce downtime, cut costs, and keep workers out of hazardous areas.

According to Euler-Rolle, the inspection robotics market is growing more than 20% annually, and closed doors represent a major untapped constraint: fire doors alone can wall off 30% to 50% of critical equipment in a typical process facility. Because a robot's value scales with how much of a site it can actually reach, he argued that clearing this physical barrier unlocks disproportionately more value than incremental software or sensor upgrades.

The access-control add-on will become available for existing ANYbotics deployments and future ANYmal hardware later this year. The three partners said they are also exploring extending the same approach to elevators, gates, and turnstiles in large industrial facilities.