Producing mobile robots from scratch – secrets of working at United Robots

Robotics software, libraries, and tools for processing the data, managing the code, different aspects of architecture, organizational IT tools – this is the base which Konrad Cop, Technology Lead at United Robots can’t imagine daily working without. Read the interview to discover the company from the inside.

Konrad, how did it happen that you joined United Robots?

After my studies at Technical University in Wroclaw and ETH Zürich in Switzerland, I decided to work abroad.  After couple of years worked in Germany and Australia in robotics field I wanted to come back to Poland and continue what I was doing: staff connected to robotics and innovation. I was searching for different robotics companies in Poland, mainly start-ups. There are not many of them, but I came across United Robots and got in touch with Dariusz Mańkowski (owner and CEO). We met and we decided to start to cooperate. It was in 2020.

Have you considered other companies?

I did, but United Robots was the best option for me for a couple of reasons. UR is one of the few companies in Poland that creates mobile robots from scratch. The most of robotics companies are doing robotic arms or machine learning for industrial robots. Besides, after meeting face to face with Dariusz I had a feeling we share similar vision, perspectives and approach to how to develop a product. I said to myself: “Ok, let’s give it a try”.

What do you do at United Robots? What technologies cannot you imagine your work without?

Currently, I’m the technical leader, responsible for the development of the product and all the technical decisions like architecture, technologies used, and the direction we aim. I’m also responsible for the management of the technical team.

Technologies that I can’t imagine my daily life without? I can speak of two types of them. One is the robotics software: it’s mostly C++, Python and ROS (Robot Operating System). It is our main technological stack. Apart from that, we use various libraries and tools for processing the data, managing the code, and different aspects of architecture, but it mostly comes down to C++ and Python.

The second type is the hardware: sensors, actuators, PLC drivers, electronic boards, motor etc, in one word: the whole working system. And it is really cool when you can develop the code which enables the physical device to work.

The other aspect is the organizational IT tools. The R&D team is pretty big (15 people right now) and we need to use the project management tools like Jira, Confluence, GitHub or MS Teams or OneDrive for the communication flow.

But the tech stack is not all. I don’t imagine my work without looking for inspiration in papers, in the competitors’ work, and continuous exploration: finding out the solution to a specific problem, coming up with an idea, testing it, and implementing it. It’s a little bit of research, a little bit of exploration, and a little bit of engineering.

What does your team look like?

I don’t think you ask for appearance, more of characters? [laugh] The team is divided into 3 main sub-teams. There is a robotics software team, dealing with robotics stack development. The people are typically graduates of robotics, applied informatics, and sometimes mechatronics. They are software engineers having an intuition with hardware.

There is also the web development team: the guys who are more focused on user interface, cloud solutions and everything that makes the robots easy to handle by a human. Their work is similar to what the programmers do in software houses, still, there is a strong hardware component in it.

Last but not least, we have the HW team: electronics / electrical engineers, control engineers, and mechanical designers who are responsible for the robot as a physical device. These guys are graduates from mechanical or electrical engineering faculties.

The age average is low, many of the team members are recent graduates or just a few years after studies. There is also diversity within the team, i.e. we have people outside Poland and Europe and we are open to hiring more ex-pats. Unfortunately, we don’t have any girls in the tech team, but we are looking for some and this is definitely a missing part right now. In the end, the only criteria that we have, to get people on board are competencies, potential, and match with the team and our way of working.

What do you like the most about your job?

What is great is that every day is different, every day I have to solve technical problems. There are discussions with smart people,  aiming for solving different issues and implementation decisions being taken every day. Next comes the implementation phase, the possibility to see the concept being implemented and working, which amazes me every time. I like that we come from the idea to the final working solution, it is a constant process, and we are improving day by day.

When I look into the past, on what we have achieved in the last  2 years,  where we started and what we have today, it brings a lot of satisfaction. The robotics software system was designed properly, is stable and robust, and extending it right now is easy.

Moreover, I am proud that we did something extraordinary here, in Poland, There are not many companies here doing so innovative stuff, designing and producing mobile robots from scratch instead of making brand labeling of products from China

Can you talk more about the last project/task you have worked on that makes you proud?

I can tell you more about the product that is our main focus currently: industrial floor scrubber for cleaning of vast spaces. It’s a very big robot: 1,5m high, 200kg of weight and it works fully autonomously. It means it can navigate without human involvement or supervision, do the path planning, react to dynamic changes in the environment, avoiding obstacles. It’s a highly sophisticated machine that was developed from scratch by us.

The difference between such a robot and, for instance, the popular Roomba used in our homes, is in practical challenges that the robot faces. In theory, we have a robot that must navigate in the environment and do its job. But when it comes to the navigation of such a big robot, i.e., finding the localization in the vast, feature-poor space, is way more difficult. We have many more places to visit, scan, and create the map. We use much more sophisticated sensors with a bigger range, and higher precision than Roomba needs to have.

Typical Roomba has, for instance, 3-4 sensors: one global sensor for localization, one for obstacle avoidance, some sensors in the wheels, and maybe one tactile sensor for hitting the walls. Our robot is ten times more complicated. We have sensors everywhere, not only for vision but various types of sensors. Creating the system that works from end to end, making sure that mechanics, electronics, and software come together, makes it really complicated.

From my point of view, the biggest challenge was not about developing the autonomous navigation itself, but about getting from the phase of the conceptual prototype into a stable product. Of course, it took us some time to be able to generate autonomy and to make sure that the robot navigates freely. Yet, starting up without failures, setting-up correctly the sequence, making it working errorless, make the whole product and system stable – that was the real challenge.

What are your further plans in terms of projects and company development?

We have very ambitious plans and promising perspectives. We are right now releasing this product [Cleaner robot] into the market. We are working already on the next iteration (v 3.0) with all the issues that we found getting fixed and potential optimizations we can introduced.

Then, we want to extend our portfolio. The next product we are thinking about is the autonomous sweeper. We aim for the complete solution for cleaning (we sweep the floor before we do the wet cleaning). Consequently, there is a couple of ideas about how we extend our portfolio, into smaller robots, outdoor robots, and so on. But it depends on how the market reacts and what will be the need. Apart from the robot itself, we are working on the solution for managing a couple of robots or even a fleet of robots, to make it easy for the users, using a cloud solution to configure and manage them.

In terms of the team, we are constantly looking for great engineers sharing our passion for robotics and who will be able to work with the hardware, but also with typical software like web development. So, we have a big scope of competences we are looking for and it will be great if we could find it with inhire help 😊

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