Autonomous Control Appliances

Are you planning to let a robot, a drone or another vehicle explore the environment autonomously?

Due to our focus on embedded integration and AI & Vision, such projects meet our special interest.

The reliable and safe movement of an object through space is the supreme discipline in both fields. Both information on sensors and cameras must be collected and interpreted directly on the vehicle. Based on this analysis, a strategy for locomotion is prepared, from which a movement pattern is derived and directly split into simple commands for the individual hardware components for further transmission.

This entire chain of events is triggered in just a few milliseconds. Of course, the timeframe is continuously checked and corrections are made if necessary.

In 2018 we first came in touch with the development of such a technology in a project for the further development of autonomous drones. Our detailed project task was to integrate several cameras and ultrasonic sensors into the drone itself. The information generated by these components is needed for the effective navigation and – using AI technology – to enable lightweight on-board object recognition by the camera. As a result the images can directly be evaluated on the autonomous drone without support from the ground station.

In addition, a clearly programmed handling instruction can be stored when a semi-skilled object is detected, such as sending a message to the ground station or activating an alarm system. However, this type of technology is not limited to the domain of drones – it can be used wherever a real-time environment check is required for safe movement through space.

The Robotics and Production/Logistics sector stands out in particular and offers a wide range of application for the further automation of production lines and for improving the safety aspect in the interaction between humans and robots.