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ـه1444 يناثلا عيبر ددـــــ ـــــعلا Forum 19
م2022 ربوــــتكأا

The university's Robotics

and Internet-of-Things Lab

launches the RoboFleet system

The Robotics and Internet-of-Things Lab (RIOTU Lab) team at the “The idea of the RoboFleet application comes as a result of several
university, under the supervision of Prof. Anis Koubaa, Executive years of research in the field of integrating robots and drones with
Director of the Innovation Center and the leader of the RIOTU Lab, cloud systems to enable remote control of these robots anywhere
launched the RoboFleet system to automate delivery processes and anytime. In the Robotics and Internet-of-Things Lab, we have
within warehouses, buildings, and commercial complexes. worked to develop automated systems using communication
The objective of the RoboFleet system is to enable users to protocols that we specifically designed over the past years.
control an entire fleet of robots through an easy-to-use cloud- These applications are considered among the applications with
based platform where operators are able to schedule and the highest demand in the world of automation. Now, with the
implement delivery missions. support of the Innovation Center, we would like to commercialize
Within the past months, the developers of the system have these innovative solutions in different areas of technology such
successfully conducted several delivery experiments inside the as AI, mobile robots, drones, and IoT that are 100% localized and
University campus. These experiments were carried out at the developed in Saudi Arabia.” Prof. Anis Koubaa, Project Founder
administrative offices where the robot delivered documents RoboFleet is an example of the lab’s persistent effort in developing
between the President’s Office and the Vice Presidents' Offices fully localized ready-to-market solutions for the public. While
autonomously. The demos received praise and appreciation the main purpose of this system was to be implemented to help
from Dr. Ahmed Yamani, President of Prince Sultan University, automate processes in a warehouse scenario, RoboFleet can also
and also from university staff involved in the experiment. be deployed in other delivery automation applications such as
“I worked on developing RoboFleet’s mobile application to send malls, cafes, restaurants, and airports.
control commands to robots directly. We wanted to provide users “The delivery process using robots can be complicated at times
with a simple and informative user interface. I look forward to but we have carefully designed RoboFleet’s interface to make it
further improving RoboFleet’s user experience by adding more as easy to use as possible. I am so proud to have reached this far
useful features. I ask Allah for our continued success and success in the development of RoboFleet and I ask Allah for continued
for all the projects we are working on in the lab.” Eng. Ahmad success in this project in particular and success for all of the
Qashlan, RoboFleet Mobile Application Developer Robotics and Internet-of-Things Lab’s projects.” Eng. Kamal Al-
As the University aims at commercializing its research work Jundi, RoboFleet Web Application Developer
to the outside world, the RIOTU Lab is at the forefront of this Through the RoboFleet application, users can send delivery
new goal. With the support of the newly established Innovation requests between predefined points in the system. The delivery
Center, the lab is now, more than ever, interested in developing missions can be done in two ways: on-demand or scheduled in
innovative solutions in the emerging technology sector dealing advance. Once the mission is initiated, the robot makes the smart
with artificial intelligence (AI), mobile robots, drones, and the delivery within predefined maps in the RoboFleet application
Internet of Things (IoT). while taking into account safety precautions such as avoiding
“The logistics and transportation automation services sector is obstacles and collisions.
one of the main business sectors that we are targeting. In 2020, After months of hard work, the team is happy to finally witness
the logistics automation market was valued at $50 billion and is the fruits of their hard work. What they have been able to
expected to reach $150 billion by 2030. Moreover, this market is accomplish today could not have been achieved without the
expected to register a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of huge support of the university.
12.5% from 2022 to 2027. Therefore, we developed the RoboFleet “We believe that our solution can take the logistics and delivery
system due to the increasing demand for this technology, not only businesses to the next level. We could not have reached this
in the Kingdom but also worldwide.” Prof. Anis Koubaa revealed. far without the blessings from Allah and we are grateful to
Hoping to capture its chunk in this market, the RIOTU Lab has the university management, headed by Dr. Ahmed Yamani, for
since ramped up the development of its mobile robot systems his generous support for this project and other research and
and introduced its own system, which it has named RoboFleet. innovation projects.” Prof. Anis Koubaa, Project Founder

The RIOTU Lab conducts a demo of RoboFleet

at LastPoint’s warehouse in Al-Sulay

The RIOTU Lab conducted a Afterward, they taught the LastPoint team
demonstration of its RoboFleet system at to use the system to automate their work.
LastPoint’s warehouse in Al-Sulay, Riyadh. During the demonstration period, the
The demo of the system took place for a LastPoint team employed RoboFleet to
week, from October 16 to 20, 2022. The facilitate the processes in the warehouse,
purpose of this demonstration was to test which included assigning the robot to
the capacity of the RoboFleet system and collect customer orders from the shelving
identify and respond to any problems that units and transporting them to the
occurred during the period. packaging area.
For the demo, the RIOTU Lab team first Overall, the LastPoint team's impressions
began by configuring RoboFleet to operate of Robofleet were positive and they
in the warehouse and assigning pickup shared valuable feedback with the RIOTU
and delivery points within the facility. Lab.