As robots are increasingly entering human spaces, robotics companies should think differently the safety than they did when the robots were largely coated by their human counterparts.
Home side She believes that her sensors can help robotics companies achieve their safety goals – with a solution that is better and cheaper than popular Lidar technology.
The company based in Oslo, based in Norway, created an ADAR sensor (acoustic detection and order) for robots that uses high frequency sound. These sensors send ultrasound waves and record how the sound resonates back. These signals give the robots a three -dimensional view of their environment.
These data complement the other sensors and cameras of a robot to give the robot operating system a clearer image of the environment.
“The perception of a man-what we use most is our eyes, but we also use other senses to perceive our environment, our ears and our brain to interpret all our senses,” said co-founder and CEO of Sonair Knut Sandven in his interview. “The same is for robots or autonomous machines. They use cameras.
Sonair is designed to help fill these gaps – especially for the perception of depth. Traditionally, robotics companies turn to Lidar sensors, which send light beams and measure the way they bounce back to gather this information. Sandven said Sonair’s sensors are a better choice because they can capture more complete data.
“Lidar is like beating a laser index,” Sandven said. “[But] If you shout in a room, you will fill the room with sound. We will fill the room with sound. ”
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The exit of the sensor is structured in a standard form of industry, Sandven said, so it is designed to operate alongside a variety of different robotic materials and software.
The company has released its sensor earlier this year and since then it has been in high demand in the robotics sector, with many companies planning to integrate Sonair’s sensors into their subsequent robots models, Sandven said.
Sonair has also seen the demand from the industrial security sector. Sandven said companies use the sensors to detect when people enter areas with heavy machinery so that machinery can automatically close before an accident occurs.
Now, Sonair is trying to increase the adoption of its technology and has just set a round of $ 6 million to do so. The round included new and refundable investors Scale Capital, Investinor in Norway, and Proventure, among others.
Sandven said that investors in the field of robotics immediately understood the problem that the company was trying to solve. This is not surprising, as security will probably become a major concern, as robots are beginning to interact with people more-not as opposed to the security conversations that emerged in the early days of the automotive industry.
Fady Saad, a general associate, at Robot’s Cyberneix Ventures, which is not an investor in Sonair, recently told TechCrunch that possible security concerns were one of the reasons he did not expect people to want human -like robots at home soon.
The “kind of dirty athletes secret in homes, there is great security, many concerns, many concerns,” Saad told TechCrunch in August. “If this thing falls into pets or children, it will hurt them, so? This is just an aspect of a great obstacle that no one pays attention or very few people pay attention.”
Sandven said Sonair does not currently have immediate competition for sonar -based sensors, but this could change as more companies are trying to find robot security solutions.
“My goal is to have this technology in all robots, as you have cameras,” Sandven said. “If we are talking again this time next year, we will have a very good indication if this is the direction we are heading.”
