Cleaning. It’s a thankless but necessary task as humans tend to be, well, sloppy. An emerging solution, however, to the hours spent cleaning toilets, scrubbing floors or just picking up assorted detritus, has come in the shape of robots.

Thanks to automation, robots are every day becoming capable of more and more — due to the availability of more sophisticated end effectors or growing artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. That said, will humans be able to one day offload the repetitive everyday tasks that consume both our time and our joy?

Follow along with GlobalSpec as we try to answer that question with a rundown of robots designed for picking up after us — whether it’s in our homes or out in the world.

Cleaning up the beach

Not limited to picking up after humans in the home, one autonomous robot capable of removing waste particles and helping to restore environmental balance has been developed by a team at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Genoa, Italy.

VERO, (Vacuum-cleaner-Equipped Robot) has been designed to help clean parks, beaches, narrow alleys and other areas that are typically difficult for wheeled and tracked robots to access.

Designed specifically for cleaning up discarded cigarette butts, VERO’s four legs are connected to an onboard vacuum cleaner via hoses while each foot features an attached vacuum cleaner nozzle that allows the robot to gather cigarette butts as it moves.

The system uses a convolutional neural network to identify litter and then employs a planner to instantly determine the most appropriate way to gather all the detected objects. Meanwhile, a visual-servo-ing system — which uses feedback information culled from a vision sensor to control the motion of the robot — guides the vacuum nozzle directly over the cigarette butts.

Cleaning up waterways

Uncrewed surface vehicles (USVs) from robot manufacturer Weston Robot, have been autonomously cleaning up garbage in Marina Bay in Singapore.

Connected to a 5G network, the robot can be remote controlled in real time and enables operators to receive alerts and maintain a view of the cleaning process.

Further, the robots feature on-board sensors to test the water pH levels and chemical oxygen demand as it collects garbage.

Cleaning ship hulls

Shipping container firm Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) is employing robots to clean the hulls of the company’s container ships to prevent biofouling.

The HullSkater from marine tech company Jotun Group adheres to the hull of a ship via magnetic wheels, removing bacteria and biofilm, which could lead to biofouling — the accumulation of microorganisms, plants, algae or small animals on wetted surfaces that could deform the structure of a ship.

Controlled via 4G, the robot removes the biofilm without damaging the ship, thereby eliminating drag and fuel consumption.

Cleaning floors

A robot designed to take over commercial floor cleaning duties has been developed by robot manufacturer Avidbots.

According to its developers, Neo is “a purpose-built, floor-scrubbing robot that integrates state-of-the-art navigation technology with hardware designed for ease of use, longevity, serviceability, safety and high productivity.”Source: Avidbots

At first accompanied by a human, Neo assesses the layout of a home and creates a map before getting to work cleaning large, hard surfaces. Faced with obstacles, Neo reroutes itself, returning to clean the area after it senses that the temporary obstacle has been removed.

Cleaning the seafloor

An autonomous system for cleaning up marine litter on the floor of the ocean has been developed by researchers from the Technical University of Munich.

As part of the SeaClear Project, the researchers created a marine cleanup system that includes an autonomous surface vehicle that conducts an initial scan of the sea bottom to localize large litter accumulations while an observation robot deployed into the water confirms the presence of undersea litter and subsequently transmits additional data and images to the operators.

Once the data is amassed, a virtual map is prepared using this information and it guides a collection robot to specific target areas where it will eventually retrieve waste using an accompanying gripper and places the waste in a basket that is towed to shore by the autonomous boat.

Cleaning the air and high-traffic surfaces

Scientists from Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have developed a robot that is capable of simultaneously disinfecting both the air and high-traffic surfaces.

To accomplish this, the team used a combination of dry fog hydrogen peroxide and ultraviolet C (UVC) radiation in conjunction with teleoperation and deep learning technology that enable the robot to identify target areas in need of disinfection.

Cleaning food manufacturing spaces

Researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging (IVV) in Germany have developed a mobile cleaning robot for the food manufacturing industry.

The Mobile Cleaning Device 4.0 (MCD) relies on a series of sensors and AI to assess the cleanliness of conditions, from flooring to equipment, within the food manufacturing space. The sensors in combination with the AI determine the degree of fouling and biofilm deposited on equipment and other surfaces and adjusts the amount of pressure applied to the surface and the amount of cleaning solution needed to disinfect the surface.

Cleaning toilets

A robot capable of cleaning toilets in office settings has been developed by New York-based company Somatic.Source: Somatic

For $1,000 a month, companies can automate the cleaning of shared restrooms in their buildings amid a global labor shortage. The Somatic toilet cleaning robot can clean toilets, mop, disinfect and vacuum-dry most areas throughout a public restroom.

To accomplish this, Somatic maps the entire floor plan of the office so that the robot can virtually navigate the area as well as perform the cleaning tasks.

Cleaning windows

A team from Canada’s Simon Fraser University has developed a robotic window and building façade cleaner.

Source: Simon Fraser University

Currently, high-rise window and building cleaning tasks are carried out by human workers. However, the patent-pending robot, which mimics the motions of human window washers, could potentially take the risk out of such a dangerous job by automating it.

According to the developers, the window-washing robots are three times faster, more efficient and safer than current human high-rise window and building façade cleaners. Additionally, the robots can reportedly wash even the most complicated building designs while withstanding high winds and extremely cold temperatures, both of which tend to be a challenge for human workers.

Cleaning railway power lines

The West Japan Rail Company, otherwise known as JR West, is using a giant humanoid robot to clean and maintain railway power lines in Osaka, Japan.

The robot prototype — developed jointly by JR West, Man-Machine Synergy Effectors Inc. and Nippon Singal — is affixed to a crane truck that travels along the rail tracks. The robot is remotely controlled by an operator in the truck’s cockpit, who monitors tasks via virtual reality (VR) goggles carrying a video feed from cameras fixed to the robot’s top half.

According to the robot’s makers, responsive controls in the cockpit enable the operator to sense weight, resistance and other sensations from the robot’s arms, thereby enabling the completion of tasks such as cleaning power lines or performing maintenance tasks.