Computational Intensity has been always a prohibitive factor for advancements of AI which is why robots are not agile and cannot re-act fast and in real time. In Academia, using extra hardware to show a demo is not a problem but a viable product should not cost higher than mass consumer's affordability. While a 10 percent reduction in computational cost is considered enormous, we slashed it by making a navigation stack on a 300 MHz Micro-controller (MCU) instead of a 1.2 GHz Quad core CPU. It requires 8 MB RAM which is 64 times less than competition.
Current Status
We are a running business. For this current development, we have started licensing out our Q-SLAM in 2019.
Problem or Opportunity
What MP3 or WMA did to Audio, is exactly what our invention can do to robotics and by extension to self driving cars. With having a $8-10 SLAM brain, you can make anything mobile.
Solution (product or service)
Please see the pdf attached. Although in the video we have shown a coverage video for the purpose of bench-marking with other robots in the market, and the fact that we show much superior performance, SLAM is capable of any navigation task. It does not have to be coverage. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gLfzi76vjenNN9DALQkFlJw47J_AjBoR/view
Competitors
Brain Corp: Offers computer vision, AI libraries, and platform integration services. ACCUWARE : Offers a visual SLAM API requiring significant resources to operate. DIBOTICS: Provides SLAM IP and engineering services to OEMs. GESTALT ROBOTICS: Offers a visual SLAM library with object recognition. SLAMCORE : Provides a multi-sensor capable SLAM library with C++ API.
Advantages or differentiators
Computational agility and prodcution cost. Learn more here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/f403yviqtwr8p46/Draft-TV-FirstEdit_AI.Inc.mp4?dl=0
Money will be spent on
Currently we are scaling to bigger size robots. Will be spent mostly on payroll and prototyping.
Company licensed its first customer in Q4 2019 and sold 23000 licenses with yearly projection of 200,000 per year at 6 USD per license. However, due to COVID, apart from the initial 23000, new orders have not come in yet. There could be delays and depending on how late that will resume, or if new licensees could be found, the company is subject to losing its staff (and/or eventually) liquidation. Company has a runway of approximately 4-5 months but you never know...
