ABB today announced that it has acquired Swiss startup Sevensense, a leading provider of AI-powered 3D vision navigation technology for autonomous mobile robots (AMRs).
Sevensense was founded in 2018 as a Swiss technical university affiliated with ETH Zurich.
Sevensense can transform any mobile machine, from AMRs to forklifts and cleaning machines, into mobile robots with unprecedented autonomous capabilities.
Its navigation technology combines artificial intelligence and 3D vision, enabling AMR devices to make intelligent decisions and distinguish between stationary and moving objects in dynamic environments.
Once manually guided, mobile robots with Simultaneous Visual Selection and Mapping (Visual SLAM) technology create an autonomously operating map, reducing operation time from weeks to days and enabling AMRs to navigate highly complex, dynamic environments alongside people.
Maps are constantly updated and shared across the fleet, providing instant scalability without interrupting operations and greater flexibility than other navigation technologies.
Sevensense won the ABB Robotics Innovation Challenge in 2021, which led to the partnership. This led to ABB investing in Sevensense's Series A funding round – which raised $7.7 million – and also beginning to bring Visual SLAM AMRs to market.
According to Gregory Hitz, CEO of Sevensense:
“This is an important moment in our shared journey as we bring our homegrown technology to a wide range of markets and sectors.
ABB is the ideal place for us to continue expanding our versatile 3D visual autonomy platform, serving OEMs across the automated material handling and robotics service industries.
Together, we will redefine the boundaries of AI-enabled robotics.
Marc Segura, Head of Robotics at ABB, shared:
“With the acquisition of Sevensense, ABB becomes the leader in the next generation of AMRs, offering Visual SLAM in autonomous mobile robots, along with an integrated portfolio covering robotics and machine automation solutions, all managed through our value creation platform.”
Ford plans to use Visual SLAM at its US production site and Michelin in internal logistics at its plant in Spain. Other car manufacturers will roll out this technology in the UK, Finland and Germany.
Following customer pilot projects in the automotive and logistics industries, ABB will integrate Sevensense technology into the company's AMR portfolio, delivering an unprecedented combination of speed, accuracy and payload.
This technology will continue to be sold across verticals, including material handling, cleaning and other service robotics areas under the product name Sevensense.
Main image: Sevensense. Image: not supported.
