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Fueled by decades of peer-reviewed and hands-on hard science with real mobile machines, forged by dozens of global user cases, including some with Fortune 500 companies, our proprietary GIM SW Stack turns your mobile working machine into a full-blooded field & service robot and speeds-up your product development, opens new markets and saves your resources. We turn any mobile working machine operator into a field & service robot overlord. Be part of the revolution.
BY TOMMI TIKKANEN, M.Sc.(Eng.), Lead Robotics Engineer, Project Manager, Team Leader, Developer
Not even many engineers know what middleware is. There’s a simple reason for that — usually, it’s invisible. And normal users don’t care how Google Maps connects to its backend servers, they just want to see the map. Same in business — managers don’t generally worry about how things are connected, as long as everything eventually works.
RoboGuide for visually impaired people
There has been a worldwide demand already for decades to develop a robot for visually impaired people as an alternative for the guide dog. However, the development of such a device has become technologically and economically feasible only during the last decade mainly due to the maturation of relevant sensor technologies and algorithmics.
RoboGuide project is funded through EU EuroStars program. Our partner is a German company Locomotec. Their application is a running companion for the visually impaired. The project started in Nov 2018 and will continue until April 2021. The target is to develop and test a prototype that would be ready for further development and become a commercial product within a year or two. The project is run by one of company’s founders, COB Professor Emeritus Aarne Halme.
The first year was used to interview potential visually impaired users and to produce the first mock-up test equipment to evaluate the mechanical structure, its ergonomical aspects and to study the functionality of the sensors attached. The robot has two driving wheels and in the middle of their axis a vertical bar with a joint. At the top of the bar there is the user handle with access switches. The user follows the equipment by holding the handle. The user is able to adjust the speed and the pulling force. The most important sensors are a laser-radar, camera and inertial unit. The robot has also a satellite navigation unit.
Current mechanical construction is an engineering version but soon the robot will get a designed cover for the protection of the electronics and a smart outlook. The sofware stack is under continuous development and additional functionalities are added and tested all the time. To get more information about the technical details, please visit the project’s Blog (with Finnish, English and German texts) at RogoGuide.org
Rebooting street sweeping
Just after releasing the other day the cool video from LMAD project(shown below), where GIM Robotics built a beautiful autonomous last-mile delivery robot piloted at Aalto University Campus, Otaniemi, Finland, we were yesterday part of the launch of the great Trombia Free autonomous street sweeper. Well, they might call it a street sweeper. We call it an awesome autonomous service robot. Check out this Hollywood quality video. Once you have enjoyed that appetizer, you should move into the main course and hear the full story. It includes also the prize winning performance of our own Tapio Taipalus (14:15 onwards). Our CEO tells you what GIM Robotics did in this great project and how we did it. If you still have some room for the dessert, read what the prestige ROBOTREPORT tells about this game changing launch. Trombia Free will definitely rock the world!
LMAD testing at Aalto Campus
Last month, the LMAD startup successfully operated its last mile autonomous delivery platform at the Aalto University Campus, near Helsinki, Finland. The local K-Market grocery store offered its customers the option of ordering their groceries online and having them delivered by LMAD’s autonomous delivery robot. That main hero of the above video (in addition to the brave shop owner of the Otaniemi K-Market Aleksi Tapani of course) is that great looking autonomous mobile robot, which, you guessed it right, was built by GIM Robotics.
After you have watched the movie, while enjoying your popcorn and beverages, please read Gergely’s (from LMAD) blog post and EIT Digital’s news article to get the full picture. The last-mile delivery is one of those really hot topics in service robotics business. This LMAD led EIT Digital supported project together with Futurice, Forum Virium Helsinki, Bestmile, ClickandEasy, TwinswHeel and Cap Digital has been a real success story so far and we at GIM Robotics can hardly wait for the next phase.
Full stack automation software for mobile machinery and vehicles. It enables autonomous operation for any machine. Our universal solution has been used in mining, construction, agriculture, forestry, marine, railway and automotive applications. Proprietary mapping and localization feature is based on natural infrastructure, therefore no additional infrastructure, such as lanes, reflectors or beacons, are needed.
With our help, your vehicles can start driving autonomously. We deliver R&D and integration services for robotic systems.
We deliver software that makes work machines in all industries more intelligent, precise and efficient.
Our products are designed to last and function in any weather condition durably. Our robot platforms accelerate your research and development.
We specialize in design, research, development and integration of intelligent robotic systems. The founders of GIM Ltd. are key persons from the Automation Technology laboratory at Helsinki University of Technology (nowadays Aalto University).
GIM ROBOTICS
Turuntie 42, 02650 Espoo
Finland
contact@gimrobotics.fi
ID 2595400-3
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GIM Robotics
1 kuuukausi sitten
HO HO HO!
The happy elves of GIM Robotics wish you all a Merry Christmas. We have been working several years to help Santa in the coming years when the snow line is going further up north and flying is not considered environmentally friendly, not even when it is done by Santa and his reindeer powered Sleigh. Pick up your favorite beverage and read about our wonderful journey in designing, building and testing Santa's new RoboSleigh. We are hoping he will visit our HQ before the Christmas Eve. Fingers crossed...
#christmas2020 #christmasstory #ChristmasSpecial #robosleigh #gim #gimrobotics #LMAD #forumvirium #DBSchenker #robotics
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GIM Robotics
1 kuuukausi sitten
MEET ONE OF OUR FINEST:
Tommi Tikkanen, M.Sc.(Eng), Lead Robotics Engineer, Project manager, Team leader, Developer
During high school, Tommi thought that building robots seemed like the best career choice for him and it has truly proven to be so. He likes to experiment and see how his code move physical things. Also, he anticipated that robotics would be an increasingly hot topic in the the new century. His MSc studies at Aalto University focused completely on mobile robotics and other relevant skills. After graduation he worked as a researcher at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland for 3 years, and finally in 2015 found GIM that matched his personal interests 100 %. He was recruited as the employee number 7, and started by being the first developer of company’s obstacle detection and tracking system. Then, when the company grew, he got to be a project manager and a team leader. His focus was to help customers create situational awareness products. In his current role, since 2020, he has been responsible for general software development and DevOps.
In his blog post Tommi shares his thoughts about the importance of having the best possible middleware especially if you are working with huge mobile machines. He goes through our history starting from our own GIMNavi middleware dating back more than 10 years. GIM Robotics has been looking into many options in the search of the perfect middleware. In addition to GIMNavi, ROS1 and ROS2 solutions like ZeroMQ, RabbitMQ, Kafka, ZeroCM, plain DDS, and LCM have been evaluated. We have looked at things like pure technical performance, compliance, community support, and modularity. It looks like ROS2 emerges from this battle as a clear winner. It simply ticks all the boxes.
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GIM Robotics
1 kuuukausi sitten
MEET ONE OF OUR FINEST: THE SENSEI
Professor Emeritus Aarne Halme, Chairman of the Board
Our COB has 50 years of mobile robotics related research under his belt. Aarne is definitely the Grand Old Man of Robotics in Finland and beyond. There are very few professionals anywhere in the world, who are as experienced as he is and who are still working actively with the mobile robots.
This post introduces Aarne shortly and gives some background info about his revolutionary RoboGuide project, in which GIM Robotics has been developing a new type of robot for visually impaired people as an alternative for trained guide dogs.
Extremely compressed BIO
Aarne Halme got his Doctor of Technology in 1972 from Helsinki University of Technology. He has been a professor in three different universities, but Helsinki University of Technology, later Aalto University, is the place, where Aarne truly left his mark to the history of mobile robotics. He started Autonomous Technology Laboratory in 1986 and went straight into robotics. Hundreds of Master Theses and around 40 doctoral dissertations, including seven of them from our own GIM Robotics staff, underline his extensive educational impact in this field. Through his numerous research visits to labs around the world, especially in the UK and Japan, Aarne knew exactly what was happening in the field of robotics when everything was still new and unexplored. He contributed considerably to the field of walking machines from late 1980's onwards. The huge 6-legged walking machine MECANT was a ground-breaking research tool and the lessons learnt from it were adopted by Plustech Ltd in their 6-legged walking harvester, which was later purchased by John Deere. Aarne was a major actor in a large Esprit II Panorama project, where some of the earliest self-driving cars and working machines were successfully demonstrated in late 1980's and early 1990's. He was among the first professors to really focus on multi-robot systems and that decision led to several novel robotic systems working not only on land, but also in underwater conditions. To try to list even a half of the projects he has led or to describe the areas (e.g., factory, home, underwater, mining, forestry, space) where he has worked in the field of mobile robotics is not doable in a single SOME posting.
Creating robots for humans
However, one additional project must be introduced before going into the RoboGuide project. This project was active from late 1990’s till mid-2000 and it was called WorkPartner. The objective was to develop a new type of lightweight robotic working machine designed mainly for outdoor use. Mobility was based on a hybrid system, which combined benefits of both legged and wheeled locomotion to provide at the same time good terrain negotiating capability and large velocity range. The goal was to make an adaptive and learning robot, which could carry different tools and work interactively with a human. The user could be physically present on the same site as the robot or he/she could use telepresence from a distance and communicate via Internet. In both cases, the communication took place via a new generation user interface based on multimedia and cognition. The idea of making robots, which could help normal people in their everyday tasks, has been one of Aarne’s key themes, basically throughout his career. For example, parallel to the WorkPartner project, Aarne had several other research projects where he studied how home automation and mobile robots could help elderly and physically impaired people live full lives in their own homes.
THE ROBOGUIDE
So, when Aarne and three other founders, all doctors from Aarne’s lab and from the Academy of Finland’s Centre of Excellence in Generic Intelligent Machines led by Aarne, decided to commercialize their know-how and founded GIM Robotics in 2014, it was clear that the robots-assisting-humans theme would be placed on the company’s Roadmap. In November 2018, after some initial internal research, GIM Robotics managed to get the needed funding from EU’s EuroStars program and the RoboGuide project was officially initiated. In the project, GIM Robotics develops a guide robot for visually impaired people. The project is proceeding nicely and our guys are working with the 2nd generation prototype. The initial testing with the help of a group of visually impaired people has been conducted and more extensive tests in winter time conditions will start soon. You can read the latest news from RoboGuide blog (roboguide.org). The texts are in Finnish, English and German. The blog is updated by Aarne and provides you an easy way to interact with our SENSEI. He might even share a piece of his wisdom, if he is not too busy designing the next generation RoboGuide with his group or sketching a new revolutionary robot.
Nothing beats the experience.
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