Robohub partners with Avidbots on autonomous robotics

Avidbots is an SME in Kitchener, ON. Avidbots is an industry leader in commercial service robots. Their flagship autonomous floor scrubbing robot (Neo) is currently deployed to commercial/industrial facilities on 5 continents.

The Waterloo RoboHub is the home of robotics at the University of Waterloo, bringing together all of the related technical, educational, research, and other services and experience into one central group

• Avidbots was looking to improve efficiency and overcome numerous engineering challenges for robots that operate indoors (e.g., dim lighting, different floor surfaces and often no GPS access for localization).

• Avidbots secured $31.5M in Series B funding to continue development of autonomous robotics cleaning technology.
• Avidbots and RoboHub are currently working on a Mitacs Accelerate Cluster application to develop software algorithms to improve efficient autonomous platform navigation in indoor environments.

• The project will train engineers, post-doctoral fellows and graduate students as well as empower Avidbots to become a world leader with this improved automation technology.
• Combined Mitacs and industry funding is expected to exceed $540K for this project, with the potential to grow to over $1M as the project extends beyond the Cluster.
• The next phase of the project will involve addressing robot aesthetics to improve suitability in a human-centric environment.