Robots for Road Maintenance, Parcel Delivery and Agricultural Assistance
Robotics specialist Capra Robotics relies on Deutsche Telekom’s IoT mobile and satellite network and Swift Navigation.
With various attachments such as a suction nozzle, spray nozzle or even a stereo camera with a connection to the cloud, the robotics solutions from Capra Robotics automate processes in a wide range of applications: In city cleaning, they can collect cigarette butts, remove chewing gum from the tarmac or spread grit to combat slippery roads in winter. In city centres, they can deliver parcels autonomously – and reduce CO2 emissions from lorries. In steep vineyards, the robots check the health of the plants so that pesticides can be applied precisely and sparingly. That’s how they support climate protection.
Tracking the robot’s location in real time
Capra robots are highly manoeuvrable. The devices can carry loads of up to 50 kilograms or pull trolleys with loads of up to 500 kilograms. The solution also has an integrated tracking system to track the robot’s location in real time and monitor the status of the transported goods. An AI-supported navigation system with camera technology allows the machines to manoeuvre around obstacles, navigate in confined spaces and avoid collisions.
“Companies are investing heavily in optimising their intralogistics to ensure the smooth flow of materials within their production facilities. However, a bottleneck arises during material transport between production units. The transition from indoor to outdoor areas poses particular challenges for conventional robots, resulting in labour-intensive and time-consuming manual work. Thanks to the combination of reliable connectivity, precise positioning and camera-based navigation, the Capra robot enables companies to close the gap between indoor and outdoor logistics – a great potential for efficiency,” says Lars Hee Hansen, Chief Commercial Officer of Capra Robotics.
Seamless connectivity via NB-IoT, LTE-M, 4G, 5G and satellite
Telekom provides global connectivity and precise positioning so that the autonomous mobile robots can perform repetitive tasks independently. With a growing network of cooperating specialists such as Intelsat or Skylo, Deutsche Telekom seamlessly supplements classic terrestrial IoT connections such as NB-IoT, LTE-M, 4G and 5G with satellite connectivity – even in areas with low mobile network coverage, large expanses of water or in the air.
In addition, Swift Navigation is a cloud solution for position calculation with an accuracy of up to four centimetres. The Skylark positioning solution corrects the precision of conventional satellite navigation systems. This is often only three to five metres. To do this, the data from 40 to 50 satellites is fed into a recalculation via uniformly distributed reference stations in the Deutsche Telekom network.
