InMach has set itself the goal of developing service robots for the fields of health services, convalescence, elderly care and facility management and is focusing its attention on mobility, transport and the treatment of areas and surfaces. In order to create the basis for affordable service robot systems in the aforementioned target environments, the company aims to forego the use of extensive and cost-intensive navigation sensors. InMach is therefore developing and evaluating a low-cost OEM navigation component for these service robot systems as part of this work package

The low-cost navigation is to be achieved through a process that draws on RFID tags incorporated into the floor surface for the purposes of localisation and guiding the robot's movements. Based on a floor surface equipped with RFID tags (SmartFloor), a prototype unit comprising a fleet of service robots will be built up that will perform the logistics and facility management tasks such as the cleaning of hospital floors. The parallel use of several of the same and/or different service robots in one target area requires coordinating and monitoring the service robots (fleet management). As part of this work package, such a process for coordinating and monitoring several mobile platforms will be developed.

• prototypes of application-specific mechatronic components
• software components for navigation and localisation
• integration of the OEM component for RFID navigation in prototype service robots for use in public buildings