Cobalt

A tall, blue, rectangular robot that is wider at its base is seen from the front, side and back.
A fashionable security robot. Photo: Cobalt Robotics

Cobalt is an indoor security guard robot that can recognize faces, check badges, and use an array of sensors to identify potential security or environmental threats. It navigates both autonomously and under supervision of a human operator.

Creator

Cobalt Robotics

Year
2017
Country
United States 🇺🇸
Categories
Features
When everyone leaves, this robot goes to work. Video: Cobalt Robotics

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Appearance

Neutral

Did you know?

Swiss designer Yves Béhar dreamed up Cobalt's look to align with office décor instead of the typical metallic appearance of robots.

Close-up of Cobalt's camera system.
Cobalt on the lookout. Photo: Cobalt Robotics

History

Cobalt Robotics, a startup based in Palo Alto, Calif., was founded by Erik Schluntz, a former engineer at SpaceX, and Travis Deyle, a former roboticist at the Georgia Tech's Healthcare Robotics Lab and Google X. In 2017, Cobalt announced an autonomous mobile robot designed for indoor security applications that can "work alongside human guards to provide better security than people can do alone." Cobalt's robot is able to navigate around premapped areas in buildings, recognize people and read badges, and features a wide range of sensors, including day-night cameras, lidar, microphone array, RFID, and smoke and CO2 detectors.

A hand holds an ID up to the robot.
Checking IDs and taking names. Photo: Cobalt Robotics

Specs

Overview

Autonomous operation. Two-way video and audio communication. Intruder detection and deterrence. Remote human operators. Emergency response. Badge reader integration. Over-the-air updates. Wi-Fi mapping. Environmental sensing. Anomaly detection and asset tracking.

Status

Ongoing

Year

2017

Website
Width
53.3 cm
Height
154.9 cm
Length
53.3 cm
Weight
68 kg
Speed
3.2 km/h (average), 9.7 km/h (max, for emergencies)
Sensors

3D scanner for obstacle avoidance and navigation. Secondary 3D scanner, pointing down, to detect small obstacles and cliffs. Four-camera array, with infrared cameras. Navigation sensor with long range (20 meters) and wide field of view (270°). Environmental sensors (smoke, carbon monoxide, humidity, temperature, and dust in the air), thermal, ultrasonic, and bump sensors. Two long-range RFID sensors to track assets and high value items. Microphone array. Badge scanner for mobile access control and employee authentication.

Actuators

Hub motors in wheels

Degrees of Freedom (DoF)
2
Materials

Body of the robot is covered in fabric, which is detachable and water-resistant and hides speakers, cameras, and an environmental sensor bay. Top part of the robot is metal housing for compute and sensing modules.

Compute

High-end server-grade computer with NVIDIA 1080-class GPU. Secondary compute resources to manage networking and safety-critical systems.

Software

ROS, Python control, API calls over HTTP

Power

Lithium-iron-phosphate battery, 8 hours of operation; 2 hours to charge from empty. Automatically tops off charge every hour to ensure battery charge while on duty.

Cost
$75,000 per year for security service, including robot, specialists, and set up.