Within Robotdalens core area Field robotics, research and development are underway on heavy autonomous vehicles such as wheel loaders and forklift trucks. Robotdalen’s ventures in professional service robotics are among the largest of their kind in the EU as well as the world.

Our venture in Field Robotics is one of the largest within Europe and world-leading when it comes to co-operation with industrial partners focusing on commercial products.

“We develop heavy autonomous vehicles primarily for transports in mines, factories and warehouses,” says Dimiter Driankov, professor at Örebro University and responsible for the Robotdalen projects in Field robotics. "This is a broad spectrum of exciting applications and the projects emanates from real needs at companies.”

Basic parameters for the projects are that they are as realistic as possible and yield added value both for academia and industry. They are to be undertaken in collaboration with vehicle manufacturers and system integrators, as well as the end-users of the products. All projects are financed both by the Swedish Knowledge Foundation and Robotdalen.

Well known industrial partners

We cooperate with companies such as Danaher Motion, Linde Material Handling and Stora Enso as well as Volvo Construction Equipment and Atlas Copco.  

“Research development is conducted on actual platforms such as forklift trucks and LHD trucks, which the industries contribute to the projects,” says Dimiter Driankov. “The demands come from the truck manufacturers and especially the end users participating in the projects.”

LHD stands for load, haul and dump and means that the vehicles are developed to autonomously be able to load a payload, haul it to another spot in the facility and dump it there. The work is carried out at the AASS (Applied Autonomous Sensor Systems) research centre at Örebro University under the management of Dimiter Driankov.