As robots increasingly enter human spaces, robotics companies will need to think about safety differently than they did when robots were largely siloed from their human counterparts.
Sonair thinks its sensors can help robotics companies reach their safety goals — with a solution that is both better and cheaper than popular lidar technology.
The Oslo, Norway-based company built an ADAR (acoustic detection and ranging) sensor for robots that uses high frequency sound. These sensors send out ultrasound waves and capture how the sound echoes back. These signals give robots a three-dimensional view of their surroundings.
This data complements a robot’s other sensors and cameras to give the robot’s operating system a clearer picture of the environment.
“Perception for a human — what we’re using the most is our eyes, but we’re also using other senses to perceive our environment, our ears and our brain to interpret all our senses,” said Sonair co-founder and CEO Knut Sandven in an interview with TechCrunch. “The same is for robots or autonomous machines. They’re using cameras. Cameras are really great to understand the environment, but they’re not good for reliably detecting objects under all circumstances.”
