2024 has been a busy year for GIMsters, and we welcome this short break to load our batteries, figuratively speaking, and to enjoy our time with friends and families.
With this short “The Duel of the Hats” video we wish all of our partners, clients and fans Happy Holidays.
The lessons learned from this not-so-serious video should include the two obvious:
- Small and cheap things, like a basic IMU, can have a huge impact on everything with the right knowledge, and
- A smile can make all the difference – in everything.
Neither of them cost us, basically, anything.
So, let’s keep on smiling, and learning, also in the years to come.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2025!
HO-HO-HO! WHO’S THERE?
Our robotics engineers said there’s a sighting of Santa, and it’s almost centimetre level accurate… We have a point cloud evidence, as you can see here.
‘Tis the season to be jolly, and boy, have we been jingling all the way through a year jam-packed with a sleigh-load of projects and events!
In a stroke of holiday magic (or perhaps just great timing), we welcomed some new, buffed-up robotics experts into our ever-growing GIM-family this year. They’ve brought not just expertise, but also some serious muscles to our team. Rudolph, you’ve got some competition!
Our team was hard at work in the background, making product development look like a holiday gift-wrapping extravaganza. And guess what? We’re now officially licenced to spread joy in the world of logistics – move over, Santa, there’s a new delivery crew in town!
If you can trust the meteorologist, there are chances that we’ll be enjoying a picture-perfect white Christmas here in Finland – the kind that makes you want to break out into a snowball fight!
As the year draws to a close, we extend warm wishes for a joyous Christmas, and let’s have a successful and festive 2025!
BOTH HUMAN AND ROBOT GIMSTERS ARE HELPING SANTA
Climate change has dire effects here on the higher latitudes, especially during the winter months. Weather is fluctuating heavily, and we are going from barren ground to deep snow conditions during Christmas time. This year we seem to have a reasonable snow cover around GIM Robotics’ HQ in Leppävaara, Espoo and we felt we should help Santa Claus to park his reindeer-powered sleigh easily in a specially reserved parking place.
To do the needed daily snow clearing operations effectively, we wanted to train the newest member of our robotics family, the Avant e6 full-electric, battery-powered compact multi-purpose working machine, in that task. Learning by doing is our preferred way to proceed, both for man and machine, so we took the “Green Baby” out into decent snowfall and showed it the moves. We let a human GIMster do the snow removal near the car with a shovel and leave the heavy lifting and big area cleaning for the mechatronic GIMster. Let’s hope that the snow stays on the ground, and we can let the duo continue their cooperation till Santa arrives.
Merry Christmas to all our friends!
SANTA’S CHALLENGE
A short Christmas story about how we are helping Santa Claus to distribute joy and happiness also in the climate change hampered future, when there isn’t that much snow and flying is not considered climate friendly action. Being a Finnish company, we are of course well-aware of the problems Santa has been facing during the last few decades. The snow line is moving further North and Santa has been forced to fly more than earlier to deliver presents to all kind children all over the world. Santa has been criticized for gaining so much fly mileage, because reindeer are known to fart extensively when they are flying and as we all know very well, that is not a good thing for our planet.
The happy elves of GIM Robotics
To help the good old Santa, GIM Robotics has worked relentlessly for several years. GIM is in a perfect position to do just that, because our normal daily job is to turn mobile machines into autonomous self-driving mobile robots. We are also experts in building fully functional mobile robots from scratch. There are many subsystems to master to do that, but undoubtfully the navigation is one of the most important ones. To navigate, the machine has to know where it is, where it is supposed to go and how it should get there. In Santa’s case, it means that he has to know at all times where his Sleigh is, where he is supposed to go next and how to get there without colliding with anything, be it a late-night delivery truck or Finnair’s plane heading to Ivalo, which, by the way, is Santa’s home airport. Our approach to help Santa decrease the amount of flying, is based on the idea of providing him with a fleet of autonomous RoboSleigh situated in strategic locations all over the world. No need to make those long inter-continental flights and fight against the clock.
Navigation to cope even with the heaviest snow blizzards
GIM Robotics is one of the few companies in the world capable of providing precise outdoor navigation of mobile machines in all weather conditions. First, we create an environmental model of the surrounding where the robot is working and then localize it in there. Environmental modeling is also known as a mapping stage. Once this environmental model is done (the map is created), the machine needs to localize itself in it. That is done in real time with our proprietary localization algorithm, which uses the map as the frame of reference for the localization. When the machine can localize itself on the map, then we can create tasks that the machine can execute – like delivering Christmas presents to kind children.
The French connection
In this special case, our design and integration team has developed the mobile hardware platform from the concept, electronic and mechanical designs all the way to integration and deployment. Santa’s Sleigh has some important requirements: the presents must be protected from the elements; they must be easily available and there must be space for many packages. After all, there are so many kind children all over the world. The work on the first version of the RoboSleigh started with the concept design in summer 2019, was integrated during September-October 2019 and the whole platform was delivered and deployed in Nokia campus in Paris, France beginning of November 2019 as a part of a LMAD project funded by the EU. After all, even the bureaucrats in Brussels know very well that it is a good thing to help Santa. However, this Santa Claus connection was hidden under the Last Mile Autonomous Delivery concept, because believe or not, there are some people who don’t believe in Santa. The French pilot was running till 2023, and many things were developed to improve the experience and performance of the system. After all, one can’t provide mediocre quality to Santa.
Supporting your local grocery
The second version of the RoboSleigh included more powerful motors, LiPo battery for the power system, new cover and improved mechanical design based on requirements received from Santa and his engineer elves. It was redesigned during March-April 2020 and manufactured and integrated during May-June 2020, and finally used during the summer pilot at Aalto University Campus, Otaniemi in July 2020. Although we cannot be 100% sure, we are pretty sure that Mr. and Mrs. Santa were among the numerous spectators witnessing the impeccable operation of RoboSleigh when it was transporting packages from the local K-Market grocery store to nearby houses according to online orders.
Preparing for Christmas
To make sure that everything is running smoothly before Christmas, RoboSleigh was participating also in a two-phased LMAD pilot in downtown Helsinki. Parcels were transported from DB Schenker’s warehouse along the light traffic route, Baana, to various destinations. The route ended at the Helsinki Central Library Oodi. Later the robot was helping to transport Christmas presents, donated in front of the Oodi, at the Kansalaistori Square, for children with lesser wealth. The challenge in this case was the mixed environment, which included open outdoor spaces (the Square), long indoor corridors area (Baana tunnels) and different weather conditions (sunny, dark, snow and raining).
RoboSleigh was performing flawlessly. Our guys on the site say that they saw an elderly gentleman with a long white beard and a bright red jacket following the RoboSleigh when it was going through a tunnel. He was smiling.
Waiting for the visit of the red-and-white clothed man
All of us here at GIM Robotics are waiting for Santa to visit our HQ. We believe that he knows how good RoboSleigh is. We are hoping to have a chat with him. We are confident that during the coming years, there will be RoboSleigh in many places around the world. Santa can focus on managing his fleet and reduce the time needed to fly around the planet. We are sure that both Santa and his reindeer will thank us. After all, if we are truly honest, who would like to spend his/her Christmas zigzagging across the planet behind several heavily farting reindeer.
Merry Christmas to all our friends!
