Google's parent company Alphabet has deployed more than 100 autonomous robots around its offices to do cleaning and run other errands. The robots were developed by Alphabet’s Everyday Robots, a venture in the company’s experimental X division. The robots, which have an onboard AI, are currently doing all kinds of errands like sorting recycling and wiping tables at Google campuses in the Bay area.
Zoom In: The wheeled robots have flexible arms with multipurpose grippers along with cameras and a spinner LiDAR sensor to perceive the environment around them. Everyday Robots aims to create general-purpose robots that “can learn by themselves” and handle multiple tasks in unstructured environments rather than being preprogrammed “to solve just a single problem, in just one environment.” The team imagines a future where machines work alongside humans to simplify everyday tasks.
