Sonair Launches Early Access to Breakthrough 3D Ultrasonic Sensor Technology
The autonomous mobile robot (AMR) industry is growing rapidly at a 27% year-over-year rate. As these robots become more pervasive, the race to ensure they can safely navigate around people and obstacles is on. Norwegian company Sonair is at the forefront of this innovation, launching a groundbreaking sensor that -- for the first time -- uses ultrasound in the air to give robots safe spatial awareness in 3D.
Sonair can help make your robot safe and efficient with the company's 3D ultrasonic sensor.
One of the priciest components of an autonomous mobile robot (AMR) today is its sensor package, crucial for obstacle detection and safe navigation. Current LiDAR systems are not only bulky and power-hungry but also computationally demanding, driving up costs and accounting for nearly a third of the robot's price, according to the company.
A typical 2D LiDAR scanner in an AMR only sees a person's legs in one horizontal plane. In contrast, Sonair's patented ADAR (Acoustic Ranging and Detection) technology detects people and objects in 3D, with low energy and computational requirements.
Ultrasonic sensors are less affected by environmental factors such as poor lighting, dust, or changing temperatures.
"ADAR is an enabling technology for the entire mobile robot sector," says Knut Sandven, CEO of Sonair. "For mobile robot builders, ADAR provides massive technology cost savings that can be passed on to end-users, boosting automation adoption worldwide."
Sonair has now raised a total of $6.8M with Skyfall Ventures leading the latest $1.6M round. RunwayFBU, another early-stage VC fund, also contributed to the round.
"In 2024 alone, up to 200,000 AMRs will be produced, it's a $1.4B market," says Sagar Chandna at RunwayFBU. "Industrial automation and autonomy will be key drivers of this growth, but the cost of sensors remains a friction point. Sonair's innovations aim to resolve this challenge, unlocking even greater potential for the AMR industry."
Sonair has closed a new funding round to advance the robotics industry with next-gen sensing technology.
Ultrasonic sensors are less affected by environmental factors such as poor lighting, dust, or changing temperatures, ensuring reliable performance in diverse conditions where traditional sensors may fail. Sonair's sensor can also detect reflective or see-through surfaces such as glass or mirrors without difficulty.
Evaluation Kit Delivers Early Traction
Sonair is leveraging the new funding round to introduce its global early access program with an evaluation kit that has quickly been adopted by a wide range of warehouse AMR manufacturers, automotive OEMs, health- and cleaning robotics companies. "Early access partners will get a first mover advantage on a breakthrough sensing technology that addresses society's urgent need for safe human-robot interaction in a cluttered world," says Sandven.
Two Decades in the Making
The Sonair 3D ultrasonic sensor allows AMRs to detect distance and direction to all objects in a 180x180 field of view, up to a 5 meter range.
The patented ADAR technology has been in development at the world-renowned MiNaLab sensor and nanotechnology research center in Norway for more than twenty years. The imaging method is called beamforming; it's the backbone of processing for sonar and radar, as well as in ultrasound imaging known in medicine but now used in the air.
By combining wavelength-matched transducers with cutting-edge software for beamforming and object-recognition algorithms, Sonair makes 3D spatial information available simply by transmitting sound and listening. This allows mobile robots to detect distance and direction to all objects in a 180x180 field of view with a range of up to 5 meters, providing a wider field of view than existing technologies, while also detecting obstacles above and below the 2D plane of the LiDAR.
In environments that include people, equipment and other moving machines, Sonair's acoustic detection and ranging (ADAR) technology allows for continuous, safe movement of machines.
Manufacturers who choose Sonair also drastically reduce overall complexity by replacing several sensors that today attempt to compensate for the current limitations. "Our technology is where AI, machine learning and automation truly converge," says Sandven, who is also looking at markets for service robots, delivery robots, and robotic arms. "We imagine a future where humans and robots coexist seamlessly, guided by ultra-compact 3D ultrasonic sensors."
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