Sevensense Robotics to Highlight VSLAM Autonomy Kit at ProMat 2023

Sevensense Robotics will be offering live demos of its Alphasense Autonomy Evaluation Kit at ProMat 2023 next month in Chicago. The kit combines the company’s visual-based simultaneous localization and mapping, or VSLAM, positioning with its AI local perception and navigation technology, it said.

Sevensense is a spin-off of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Zurich and develops VSLAM and navigation technologies for autonomous systems.

The Zurich-based company said the Evaluation Kit gives autonomous mobile robots and autonomous guided vehicles a 360-degree view of their surroundings to offer <0.3 inches (<4 mm) precise and reliable positioning capabilities in all indoor and outdoor environments, even over uneven floors and ramps.

The company has offered its navigation technologies to AMR makers in the past, but the kit was designed to make the process easier, it said.

“We observed that many AMR manufacturers considered Alphasense Autonomy as an option to incorporate 3D Visual Autonomy capabilities into their offering but integrating, testing, and validating the fit of this navigation technology in their own vehicles and their use cases still required more expertise and time than they were able to invest without any in-house validation of the technology,” said Gianluca Cesari, chief business development officer at Sevensense Robotics, in a statement.

“The Alphasense Autonomy Evaluation Kit offers them an off-the-shelf option to easily and quickly test Alphasense Autonomy and take a generational technological leap forward,” Cesari added.

How does it work?

The kit is a plug-and-play software and hardware bundle that combines the Alphasense multi-camera sensor with Alphasense Autonomy and Sevensense’s proprietary software stack and configuration tools that dramatically reduce the time required to integrate a fully functioning Visual SLAM navigation system on a vehicle, it said.

The hardware consists of a compact device including 5 factory-calibrated cameras and a computer unit with pre-installed software, the company said. The system can be easily mounted on top of any vehicle and requires a minimal amount of connections such as power and ethernet. Optionally, additional 3rd party sensors can also be connected.

The user is guided through a web-based installation wizard to calibrate, set up the interfaces, and configure and deploy the target AMR.

The Evaluation Kit enables all Alphasense Autonomy features for trial: from easily teaching an A-to-B motion layout to performing virtual line following with obstacle avoidance. All this, while delivering the same performance as the series Alphasense Autonomy product in terms of robustness and repeatability.

On top of the provided in-depth documentation, the device contains a 4G connectivity module that allows Sevensense to provide immediate support by directly accessing the unit. Together with access to Sevensense’s service desk, this level of support allows customers to confidently perform their technical evaluations in little time.

For more on ProMat, visit Robotics 24/7's special coverage page.