From logistics to farming: Autonomous robotics becomes reality

Autonomous robotics is booming. Even beyond industrial robots in production, the application scenarios are diverse: in logistics, urban maintenance and agriculture, mobile all-terrain robots independently perform tasks. 

Two important challenges in the use of autonomous systems always take center stage: seamless cellular coverage and precise positioning. The Danish robotics specialist Capra Robotics is now using Deutsche Telekom’s IoT mobile and satellite network and Swift Navigation. This ensures that the autonomous robots can be controlled in real time and with minimal deviation from the intended position.

With various add-ons such as a vacuum nozzle, spray nozzle or even a cloud-connected stereo camera, 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 asphalt or spread anti-icing agents in winter. In city centers, they can autonomously deliver parcels - and reduce CO2 emissions from trucks. In steep vineyards, the robots inspect crop health so pesticides can be applied precisely and sparingly. In doing so, they support climate protection. Capra’s autonomous robotics solutions are already being used by numerous pioneering customers.

Capra robots are highly agile. The devices can carry top deck loads of up to 50 kilograms or carts with loads of up to 500 kilograms. The solution also has an integrated tracking system to trace 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 maneuver around obstacles, navigate in confined spaces and avoid collisions. "Companies invest heavily in optimizing their intralogistics to ensure the smooth flow of materials within production facilities. However, a bottleneck arises when moving material between production units. The transition from indoor to outdoor presents a unique set of challenges for traditional robots, resulting in labor-intensive and time-consuming manual handling. Thanks to the combination of reliable connectivity, precise positioning and camera-based navigation, Capra robots offer companies the ability to bridge the gap between indoor and outdoor logistics" says Lars Hee Hansen, Chief Commercial Officer of Capra Robotics.

Deutsche Telekom offers a convergent, reliable network with mobile communications and satellite. With a growing network of cooperating specialists such as Intelsat and Skylo, the company seamlessly supplements traditional terrestrial IoT connections such as NB-IoT, LTE-M, 4G and 5G with satellite connectivity. This makes it a global IoT connector for a seamless IoT network, even in areas with poor mobile coverage, large expanses of water or in the air. Roaming agreements with over 600 partners around the world ensure borderless connectivity worldwide.

With Swift Navigation, Deutsche Telekom also offers a cloud solution for position calculation with an accuracy of up to four centimeters. The Skylark positioning solution from Swift corrects the precision of conventional satellite navigation systems. This is often only three to five meters. To do this, the data from 40 to 50 satellites is used in a recalculation via so called reference stations distributed evenly across the Telekom network.

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