Vancouver innovator advances robot for high rises window cleaning
<p><br/></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; color: rgb(78, 78, 78); font-family: "Open Sans", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Hossein Kamali has advanced a robot that can mimic the behaviour of human window washers, including getting into the nooks and crannies of all types of building facades.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; color: rgb(78, 78, 78); font-family: "Open Sans", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The patent-pending robot, which combines AI, robotics, mechatronics and motion control technology, has earned Kamali, 32, an award from Mitacs.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; color: rgb(78, 78, 78); font-family: "Open Sans", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Kamali, a Mitacs postdoctoral researcher in Mechatronic Systems Engineering at Simon Fraser University, and Autonopia Co-founder and CTO, was presented the Mitacs Outstanding Entrepreneur Award at a virtual awards ceremony.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; color: rgb(78, 78, 78); font-family: "Open Sans", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The idea for a window washing robot was born when Autonopia Co-Founder Mohammad Dabiri witnessed a traumatizing incident firsthand while at work in a high-rise office building in Southeast Asia.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; color: rgb(78, 78, 78); font-family: "Open Sans", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">¡°It felt really absurd to me that people were putting their lives at risk, just to clean windows,¡± said Dabiri. ¡°If you compare how the Empire State Building was cleaned in 1930 to how it¡¯s done today, it¡¯s more or less the same process.¡±</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; color: rgb(78, 78, 78); font-family: "Open Sans", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Dabiri partnered with Kamali to launch Autonopia in 2019 and, since then, the company has been working to remove the element of human risk from the window cleaning business.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; color: rgb(78, 78, 78); font-family: "Open Sans", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">¡°It¡¯s intimidating, hard work that most workers don¡¯t want to do,¡± said Dabiri, noting that on average, windows on commercial skyscrapers are cleaned four times a year and windows on residential high rises are cleaned twice a year. ¡°There¡¯s high overhead to manage the hiring, allocation and training of workers, and sometimes they quit as soon as it comes time to go on a high rise.¡±</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; color: rgb(78, 78, 78); font-family: "Open Sans", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Autonopia¡¯s robot, which is scheduled to begin its first pilot project early next year, can operate on any fa?ade or surface structure. It works three to four times as fast as a human, and can withstand wind and cold temperatures.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; overflow-wrap: break-word; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; color: rgb(78, 78, 78); font-family: "Open Sans", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">¡°Sometimes people make the argument that automation takes jobs away from people, but in this case, we¡¯re actually saving people¡¯s lives and creating new opportunities for them to work safer, easier and smarter,¡± said Kamali. ¡°Why would you want to keep things manual, inefficient and dangerous? It doesn¡¯t really make sense.¡±</p><p><br/></p>
24 Jun,2021
