Vorwerk:
Simulation and software development for household robots

Vorwerk Elektrowerke GmbH & Co. KG is a German-based company known for its high-quality household appliances such as vacuum cleaners and cooking machines. As a modern company that is open to new technologies, Vorwerk offers several generations of robot vacuum cleaners worldwide. With many different markets and millions of households using these robots, unexpected and novel situations arise all the time.

Situation

Despite modern and extensive testing facilities for their robot vacuum cleaners, the daily challenge is to create tests for every "obscure" situation a robot may face. For this reason, Vorwerk decided to invest in a modern simulation environment to improve software development and quality assurance. Their team had already gained experience with ROS and Gazebo and decided to go in this direction. They were looking for someone with deep expertise to accelerate the initial development. At this point, they turned to Stogl Robotics to help them with the expertise crucial to the project.

Problem

Solution

After a brief evaluation of the existing software stack and initial simulation results, Stogl Robotics suggested switching to ROS 2 immediately, as it is a more industry-friendly and future-proof framework for robotics software development. Stogl Robotics' expertise in robotic simulation and control of robots was critical to making the right decisions in the development process. In addition, Stogl Robotics' ability to design and integrate complex robotics software was invaluable in creating a flexible development environment while developing containerized instances that could be seamlessly integrated into continuous integration pipelines and future-proofed.

Result

Stogl Robotics used various open-source robotics software to quickly set up complex and well-integrated simulations of Vorwerk's robotic vacuum cleaners. As a result, they achieved the results Vorwerk expected and efficiently improved the development of Vorwerk's robotic application. In addition, Stogl Robotics transferred much of its knowledge of robotic simulation, software design and development, and system integration to the internal Vorwerk team.