ActivMedia Robotics

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ActivMedia Robotics, former name of MobileRobots Inc, is a company in Amherst, New Hampshire which designs and manufactures autonomous research robots.

It was an early developer of autonomous research robots ubiquitous to universities and often the first serious robot used by students involved in learning to be roboticists, as evidenced by the fact that it was chosen by Microsoft as the reference platform on which to implement their new Robotics SDK.

Following in the footsteps of Cybermotion and MDARS-I, the company developed security robots, but with more powerful computers and new autonomous techniques such as SLAM, Monte Carlo/Markov localization and modified value-iterated search path planning to create a new generation of Autonomous robot for security.

MobileRobots Inc. also makes building-mapping tools, an off-shoot of the robotics navigational technology they use, which creates building maps for use by the robots. Such maps have been used for homeland security purposes at military facilities, providing space utilization information at the same time they prepare the site for unmanned patrol by security robots.

MobileRobots has also been a pioneer in flexible intelligent AGV applications, designing the control system used by RMT Robotics to develop its ADAM SGV (Self-Guided Vehicle), used for complex pick-n-place operations, in conjunction with gantry systems and industrial robot arms, used in first-tier auto supply factories to move products from process to process in non-linear layouts. Smaller versions also work in semi-conductor plant clean rooms, carrying product from workstation to workstation.