Robotics Scheduling Software

In 2020, the world changed forever because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The sudden shutdown of office and work environments was a shock, and the challenge only deepened when business leaders tried to understand how to introduce employees back into their in-person commercial spaces.

Challenge

We were approached by an engineering company that specializes in advanced technologies because they wanted to explore ways to use its robotic solutions to increase health and safety outcomes in workspaces and for its customers.

This company had built a disinfection Mobile Industrial Robot (MiR) by attaching industrial-grade UV lights to an existing robotic base. Customers could activate this robot when spaces were unoccupied to sanitize and disinfect work areas thanks to pre-built software to build and run sanitizing activities.

The challenge was that there was no mechanism to schedule those sanitizing activities. Our client’s customers also needed to schedule activities in advance with frequently recurring options.

Our client needed to address the scheduling issue quickly because, with COVID-19, speed-to-market was critical.

Solution

Kopius was engaged to develop scheduling software to run alongside the MiR software. The scheduling software was developed inside a docker container which ran on the Windows-based PC installed in the MiR base.

With this software, users could connect to the disinfection robot WiFi network and easily create activities or schedules by selecting from a list of existing activities and adding options like start time and recurrence.

Users could also check the status of the robot and run other MiR utilities from the same page.

Behind the scenes, the new scheduling software periodically checked the list of scheduled activities to ensure they launched as planned. A reporting function was added so users could see what was scheduled to run and what was recently accomplished.

Technologies used include Doctor, JavaScript Express WebApp, Mongo Database, NPM Agenda Service, NPM AgendaDash Service, and MiR Robot APIs.

Results

Our client completed the UVC disinfection robot ahead of schedule and delivered this highly anticipated product to the market creating a new revenue stream and meeting an important health and safety need.

Architecture

*Kopius performed this work under its previously known business name, Valence.