Age of Robotics
David Bruemmer CEO, Co-founder 5D Robotics
PS has been a boon for the
Gworld of transportation in general and for the robotics industry in particular. Despite this, robots have failed to permeate our world. They still lose track of where they are and as we see in the news both military and commercial drones fall out of the sky. After years of using robots to solve difficult, real world problems such as landmine detection, mapping out the hazardous chemicals and detecting radiation, 5D came to realize that reliable, useful behavior is dependent on accurate positioning. GPS lacks accuracy and doesn’ t work indoors. For instance, GPS systems often still think you are on the highway, even after you take an exit.
Vision and laser systems can be used to aid in localization and 5D has incorporated a great deal of those technologies to aid in navigation. Unfortunately, neither lasers nor cameras can see around corners and are easily disrupted by dust, rain, snow, and dynamic environments. This lack of reliability reduces value of mobile robots across the board and impacts hopes of more efficient, autonomous driving.
To address this problem, 5D created and patented a technology that provides reliable, centimeter level
42 December 2017 |