hint – Case Study Sweep

Case Study – Sweep

The BSR is facing the challenges of an ever-changing work environment and approached hint with the purpose of implementing autonomous technology in street cleaning. The result is Sweep: a collaborative cleaning robot that unburdens the employees and speeds up work processes.

Objective

Improvement of the work through autonomous technology.

Optimization of the BSR's management of urban hot spots.

Increasing the capability and efficiency of manual cleaning.

Analysis

Urban hot spots are one of the most complex challenges for city cleaning. To solve these, we not only considered the management of Alexanderplatz but also analyzed the equipment currently used. It had not been engineered user-centric, nor had it been modified for the changing demands. The consequence: many repetitive actions. We rethought this outdated working method.

With Sweep, hint combines the experience and grasp of a human with the efficiency of a machine.

Conception

The core principle of Sweep aligns with hint's rationale: the human in focus. The targeted use of autonomous technology is supposed to enhance the job of manual sweepers, while also facilitating their work. The manual cleaner and Sweep work as a team. Sweep follows the path the employee walked and cleans it automatically.

The future of street cleaning: Sweep.

Interaction

The traditional relationship between operator and machine has been eliminated. The absence of control elements presented new challenges on communications and feedback mechanisms, which hint met intuitively.

Control & Navigation

Follow-Me
Setup
Intelligent
Pathplanning
Obstacle
Avoidance
Edge
Detection
Reactive
lights
Tactile
feedback

Prototyping

The follow-me setup required rethinking the control operations, interactions, and communication elements. Therefore, the entire interaction was organized directly on the physical object. Visual programming allowed hint to receive immediate feedback about all of Sweep's functions. This way, timing, and animation could be navigated actively and moving patterns could be created particularly naturally.

Customer

BSR

Services

Concept, product design, interaction design, prototyping

Year / Duration

2017 - 2018
12 months