In recent years, the aging of drivers and a severe labor shortage have significantly impacted supply chains in developed countries, including Japan. This challenge extends beyond public road transport, affecting intra-factory logistics, and highlighting an urgent need for supply chain optimization. As industries strive to seamlessly connect factory operations with external environments and advance the concept of smart factories, the global demand for autonomous mobility technology is expected to grow substantially.

Amid these circumstances, while the need for efficiency in transport operations is increasing, there remain significant challenges in achieving high-precision autonomous mobility in environments where GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) is ineffective, such as indoor facilities or hybrid environments spanning both indoor and outdoor areas.

This project also faced similar challenges. While GNSS was sufficient for a certain level of autonomous mobility outdoors, realizing autonomous mobility in indoor or hybrid environments presented technical hurdles.

To address these challenges, Kudan conducted a demonstration experiment using its proprietary artificial perception technologies, Visual SLAM and 3D-Lidar SLAM. The experiment successfully achieved the targeted localization accuracy of within 10cm in indoor environments.

In addition, the following strengths of Kudan’s SLAM technology were confirmed during this project:

1. High Technical Flexibility
   Kudan SLAM can be easily retrofitted to existing vehicles and systems, minimizing the need for new investments while enhancing performance
2. Adaptability to Changing Environments
   Even in dynamic indoor environments, such as factories where conditions change significantly due to inventory fluctuations, Kudan SLAM enables high-precision localization using a single pre-generated 3D map.
3. Scalability of Technology
   Kudan SLAM is not limited to indoor environments but can also seamlessly support autonomous mobility in outdoor or hybrid environments, enabling deployment across diverse industrial sectors.

Building on these results, Kudan aims to expand the scale of its demonstrations and conduct further verifications in more complex environments, working toward the transition to full-scale operational deployment. Furthermore, Kudan will continue to support operational efficiency in a wide range of industries by leveraging robotics and digital twin technologies, driving innovation to meet societal needs with cutting-edge solutions.

About Kudan Inc.
Kudan is a deep tech research and development company specializing in algorithms for artificial perception (AP). As a complement to artificial intelligence (AI), AP functions allow machines to develop autonomy. Currently, Kudan is licensing its technology for next-generation solution areas such as digital twin, robotics and autonomous driving.
For more information, please refer to Kudan’s website at https://www.kudan.io/.

■Company Details
Name: Kudan Inc.
Securities Code: 4425 (TSE Growth)
Representative: CEO Daiu Ko

■For more details, please contact us from here.

The post Kudan Collaborates with a Leading Manufacturer to Successfully Complete Autonomous Mobility Demonstration Experiment with Accuracy Within 10cm – Addressing the Growing Demand for Automation in the Logistics Sector first appeared on Kudan global.

Kudan Inc. (headquartered in Shibuya-ku, Tokyo; CEO Daiu Ko, hereafter “Kudan”) will be exhibiting at the upcoming ProMat conference to showcase its solution for applications within the manufacturing and supply chain industry. This event will be taking place on 20-23 March at McCormick Place, Chicago, USA.

ProMat is the largest international material handling, logistics and supply chain show and conference featuring over 1,000 leading solution providers, including Kudan. As robotics for intralogistic use cases will be one of main interests for those attending, Kudan will be presenting both its camera-based and 3D Lidar-based “Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping” (SLAM) technology, KdVisual and KdLidar. With the robustness of Kudan’s SLAM, customers can equip their robots with a positioning stack that is able to handle warehouse environments that are typically large and dynamic in nature. This provides companies with the flexibility of not needing to implement infrastructure-based positioning systems which can be costly and time consuming. Companies can quickly change the physical operational workflows of their robots or vehicles as their operations evolve, without needing to reinstall any infrastructure.

We will be demonstrating both single-stereo and multi-stereo visual SLAM (VSLAM) capabilities on our robots at the booth. Customers will be able to see first hand how certain use cases can benefit from having a multi-camera set up on their robots or vehicles. We will be also highlighting our recent partnership with Intel in a robot running Intel’s Edge Insight for AMR with Kudan’s KdVisual SLAM software. Intel’s EI for AMRs helps customers to cut down development time through its open, modular Software Development Kit (SDK). The included libraries and middleware allows code to be implemented and deployed to AMRs even if they have multiple hardware configurations.

Customers interested in 3D Lidar SLAM solutions will also be able to view demo robots equipped with Kudan’s KdLidar SLAM software. These robots will be using Kudan’s SLAM to both create a map and navigate themselves autonomously within the booth space. In collaboration with one of our Lidar partners, Hesai, we will be demonstrating our Lidar SLAM software on our robot using the QT128, a certified safety laser scanner qualifying as an ASIL B product under ISO 26262 and can be used in AMR systems classified as ASIL A, ASIL B, and ASIL C. We will also be presenting two Lidar sensors from our partner Robosense – the ‘RS-Bpearl’, which has a unique 360°×90° super wide field-of-view (FoV) with less than 10cm blind-spot detection area, as well as the ‘RS-Helios’, which has a 70° ultra-wide vertical FoV, fulfilling both long-range perception and near-field blind spot detection needs.

Whether for indoor or outdoor, simple or complex environments, participants can visit Kudan’s booth to understand which sensor and SLAM system would best suit their intralogistic robotics applications. We look forward to discussing our SLAM solutions with you at ProMat 2023!

Presentation details

• Event: ProMat 2023 (https://www.promatshow.com/)
• Date: Monday – Thursday, March 20 – 23, 2023
• Location: McCormick Place, Chicago, USA
• Booth: #N8229

About Kudan Inc.
Kudan is a deep tech research and development company specializing in algorithms for artificial perception (AP). As a complement to artificial intelligence (AI), AP functions allow machines to develop autonomy. Currently, Kudan is using its high-level technical innovation to explore business areas based on its own milestone models established for deep tech which provide wide-ranging impact on several major industrial fields.
For more information, please refer to Kudan’s website at https://www.kudan.io/.

■Company Details
Name: Kudan Inc.
Securities Code: 4425 (TSE Growth)
Representative: CEO Daiu Ko

■For more details, please contact us from here.

The post ProMat 2023: Kudan to exhibit and present its visual and 3D Lidar SLAM solutions for intralogistics robotics use cases first appeared on Kudan global.