What comes after vacuuming, mopping, and mowing?

Exciting projects in the FM environment

Not all innovations succeed in crossing the threshold of market maturity. Ideas often remain stuck in prototype status or never manage to be produced and sold profitably. There are hundreds of exciting robotics projects that FieldBots Radar literally has on its radar. Here is a small excerpt:

Migo Ascender 

Important update: FieldBots has contributed to the Kickstarter campaign. The amount raised has now been transferred back. It appears that the Migo Ascender will not be delivered as planned. We do not yet know whether the project has generally died.

The first renderings of the Migo Ascender were spread over social media with considerable hype. The robot is scheduled for delivery in July 2024. Its financing via Kickstarter, as well as its size and performance, clearly appeal to the end customer sector. However, the ability to automatically clean stairs is groundbreaking and highly interesting for professional cleaning companies.


Yarbo Modular Yard Care Robot 
Yarbo robots are also focussing on the end customer market. In addition to exciting features, Yarbo’s modular approach is fascinating. Yarbo offers a versatile integration system that combines Yarbo Core with different modules for diverse yard work. Thanks to its modularity, the features include

  • Mowing
  • Leaf blowing
  • Snow blowing
  • Gritting service
  • Patrolling
  • ‘Follow Me’ mode (e.g., when transporting heavy objects)
  • Spreading liquids (water, fertilizer, etc.)


Somatic Bathroom Cleaning robot 
The New York-based company Somatic takes a more holistic approach to cleansing. Their robot is designed to take over the entire bathroom cleaning process. The Somatic approach is interesting because the trend otherwise tends towards co-botics. In other words, the sensible combination of human and machine labor benefits workers and users of premises. The idea of automating complex cleaning processes as a whole is either out of date or ingenious. FieldBots Radar will continue to accompany this development.


Smartbin.io Trash Bin Collecting Robot 
Emptying and disposing of waste is an integral part of infrastructural facility management. From FieldBots Radar’s point of view, there are two points of attack for robotics here: emptying rubbish bins—visualized here with a product from smartbin.io – and picking up rubbish, e.g., in public spaces – represented here by the Trash Picking Robot from Weston Robot.


Weston Robot Trash Picking Robot 

 

Almost-there technology

In other fields, the technology is on the verge of market maturity. Exciting fields are here: Glass façade cleaning, pool cleaning, and robots cleaning solar panels.

Window Robots
There is already an end-customer market for window robots. However, the quality of the cleaning performance and the actual cost-benefit ratio for easily accessible window surfaces still need to be questioned. In a professional context, robots will primarily be used to clean glass facades. Here, they can make a real ecological and economic difference.

 

Solar Panel Cleaning Robots
With the steady expansion of renewable energies, more and more roof surfaces and solar parks will require regular cleaning. According to figures from Zion Market Review, the market for cleaning solar panels is growing rapidly.

 

Pool Robots
In addition to the many small pool robots aimed at the ambitious home pool owner, there are now also a considerable number of providers who target public swimming centers, water leisure parks, or Olympic swimming pools. Unlike handy consumer gadgets, these professional robots are supplied with a power cable. This ensures no battery replacement or time-consuming charging is necessary during the cleaning run – not even for a 50 m pool.