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Smart City

Boosting Maintenance and Service Operations in Urban Areas

Smart City and Urban Mobile Robots

The potential for improving workflows in urban areas is vast. Service tasks like removing cigarette butts, chewing gum, and weeds are time-consuming and are either done manually which is hard on the workers, or with large machinery which is hard on the infrastructure. Utilizing smart city robots for tasks like these creates new opportunities for managing city operations in a more efficient and economically feasible way while improving working conditions and ergonomics for the operators involved.

Butty

In collaboration with Aarhus Municipality and KK Tech, we created a smart city robot for removing cigarette butts from the ground. We call it Butty.

Cigarette butts are the most frequently tossed item in the world. An estimated 4,5 trillion cigarette butts are thrown away annually. Upwards of 75% end up in nature or on the street.

Cigarette butts are classified as single-use plastics and contain microplastics and toxins that are harmful to our environment. They are covered by EU’s Single-Use Plastics Directive (SUP) and Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). SUP states that from 2025, single-use plastics must be removed, and according to EPR, manufacturers must cover the expense. Today, this expense is around €0,5 per piece.

Our solution uses our state-of-the-art mobile robot in combination with cigarette collection module and a self-developed AI-camera. Using our smart city robot, we can ensure removal of at least 80% and send the bill directly to the manufacturers.

Frosty

In collaboration with Saltnex we constructed a smart city robot capable of defrosting surfaces like pavement and larger areas. We call it Frosty.

Defrosting areas is a core public task, and is primarily done with sprinkling large amounts of salt on the ground. This results in an estimated 66 million tons of road salt used yearly. Salt is tough on the infrastructure: It corrodes underground pipes and tears on sidewalks, roads, and the vehicles that use it. In addition, there’s a risk of contaminating drinking water and other water sources with heavy use of salt.

Our solution uses a brine which results in 30-70% less salt consumption. The solution also works with CMA (Calcium Magnesium Acetate) an environmental-friendly defrosting agent.

Cigarette butts are the most frequently tossed item in the world. An estimated 4,5 trillion cigarette butts are thrown away annually. Upwards of 75% end up in nature or on the street.

Chewy

In collaboration with Gumbusters, we are working on a smart city robot for removing chewing gum in urban areas. We call it Chewy.

Similar to cigarette butts, chewing gum is one of the most frequently tossed items in the world. It is annoying and costly to remove. Most chewing gum consists of 25-30% PET and a gum base, which makes it fall under the EU’s Single-Use Plastics Directive and Extended Producer Responsibility. Since it is classified as single-use-plastic it must be removed from public areas, and the manufacturers must pay the bill in relation to the work performed.

The smart city robot uses a proprietary collection module paired with a self-developed Visual AI system that ensures removal of at least 80% of the gum at a fraction of the cost.

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