MOVA has introduced a series of new products at the IFA show in Berlin which it is calling “the AI MOVAment” which adopt a range of technologies that can be used across the entire home.
These run across smart outdoor, home cleaning, smart kitchen, pet care and embodied AI.
Included in the line-up is the Astra X, the first robotic lawnmower equipped with a robotic arm.
There is also a robot vacuum with electronic skin to give it a sense of touch while the Knot 80 dextrous hand points to new possibilities for intelligent manipulation.
The AI MOVAment is MOVA’s catch cry, heralding a new wave of AI innovation.
Robots traditionally lean on their cameras and sensors to detect nearby objects but Mova is adding a new sense to robot vacuums: touch.
MOVA has unveiled new sensing and interaction technologies that reinvent how robots see and connect with their environment.
The TactiPercept system introduces touch into a robot vacuum’s perception system and combines visual recognition with tactile sensing through 128 pressure sensors, a flexible cushioning structure, and real-time pressure feedback that can detect contact with furniture, walls, and other items.
After gentle contact with obstacles the robot slows down to maintain safe contact along walls for edge cleaning.
Positioning with TactiPercept the new robots can go beyond seeing and avoiding to touching and sensing their surroundings.
MOVA has taken its technology underwater with its new robotic pool cleaners.
But the upgraded AquaSonar underwater communication system allows users to maintain connectivity underwater so users can check its status and access other controls more easily.
It’s just another example of how Mova is changing how robots can perceive and connect with their surroundings. This world meets you all.
Out in the backyard MOVA’s latest Ultra Trim technology demonstrates just how precise its robots can be in real-world conditions.
Today’s robot mowers do a great job mowing most of the lawn but finishing the edges is still a challenge.
Not anymore.
MOVA’s Ultra Trim edge trimming technology gets to that last centimetre.
The MOVA LiDAX Ultra Gen 2 includes the new Ultra Trim 3.0, which has a dedicated edge cutting disc on the right side and reduces the edge gap to zero along walls and fences and hedges.
It can also tell where grass meets hard surfaces at the same level and the mower can ride over the boundary and trim the edge in the same pass.
But MOVA has already come up with Ultra Trim 4.0, which adopts a more adaptive approach with zero centimetre edge gap trimming.
It has introduced an adaptive robotic edging arm that goes beyond the mower’s body and uses a floating mechanism which brings the cutting disc to follow changes in terrain and offers three cutting height settings: 4, 5, and 6 cm.
Ultra Trim 3.0 comes right to the edge for trimming while Ultra Trim 4.0 adapts how it trims across different types of boundaries and terrain.
At IFA, MOVA introduced the Astra X robotic lawnmower and the Knot 80 dextrous hand for task-specific robotic manipulation with greater dexterity.
This is offering a glimpse of what embodied AI could become.
In the garden the Astra X is equipped with a multi-functional arm and interchangeable tool heads so it can go past just mowing to handle things like obstacle removal, fruit picking and watering.
Knot 80, unlike conventional robotic arms which are just designed for gripping, moves even closer to the dexterity of a human hand.
It combines a humanoid-inspired robotic arm with 3D spatial perception and intelligent grasp control.
It offers 11 degrees of freedom and 15 articulated joints.
When handling objects of different shapes, materials, and orientations, it can recognise their position and spatial relationship to determine exactly how to grasp them.
It has continuous visual feedback to be able to refine its movements in real time to allow for more precise, dexterous, and stable manipulation.
Knot 80 is more than just a robotic hand.
MOVA has big plans to bring this compatibility to even more of its wide range of products and scenarios.
It will enable robots to grasp, move, and organise objects as they are given the ability to take on more complex tasks.
* Stephen Fenech travelled to Berlin with support from Anker, Roborock, Dreame, Ecovacs, MOVA and EZLINK
