RoboGlass - smarte øyne og briller til våre blinde venner, robotene

"The robots are coming". Robotization is a key to efficient and competitive production. The number of production robots has tripled between 2011 and 2013, and investments among US VCs in this sector have increased by a corresponding factor up to $ 172 million in 2013. Robots are blind. They lack human-like features like efficient path planning to navigate safely, and they have no "eyes" that help them with this task. They require timely programming and major safety considerations to avoid collisions with the environment. This is a central limitation for the robots' role as agents for exponential production growth. The robot market where people and robots work side by side are expected to reach $3.3 billion in 2022 with a fantastic growth rate (CAGR) of 60%. Especially in the context of human-robot interaction, an intelligent, non-blind, planning robot can make a real difference and improve production speed, capacity, flexibility and safety. RoboGlass is SINTEF's comprehensive solution that solves both the planning- and the interaction challenges in a completely new and revolutionary way. The solution is the result of 6 years of industry-driven research at SINTEF. In this FORNY-project we want to complete a prototype to be tested and verified by our partner against their product specification. The long-term commercial goal of this FORNY-project is a startup company. The company will market, manufacture and sell a patented product - RoboGlass - for robot suppliers and robot systems integrators. Based on similar companies, capitalized by SINTEF, we believe this potential start-up company is fundable in the Norwegian capital market, IF this FORNY-project provides excellent test results, established customer relationships, an attractive business model and an excellent commercial team.