The Swedish furniture giant IKEA has team up with American furniture start-up Ori to create a robotic furniture; space-efficient robotic furniture system ideal for small rooms which can simultaneously serve as a bed, wardrobe, table and storage unit, sofa, and room separator.
Rognan, a shape-shifting furniture system that moves robotically to create more flexible living areas in compact homes. The system is an amalgamation of IKEA’s existing Platsa storage solution and Ori’s robotic platform.
Contents
How IKEA Robotic Furniture Works
Initial appearance of the Rognan pose like a storage unit with a couch attached to its base. There is a touchpad mounted on the side of the cabinet, which has few touch enabled buttons for some robotic actions. The button commands not only can turn Rognan to serve as a sofa, table and storage shelf, and bed, but also open up a pair of wardrobes.
By touching a button, the system extends on wheels to provide a further eight square metres of living space that can transform a living room into a bedroom or a sofa.
The Technology
IKEA Robotic Furniture is a combination of Electronics, Mechanics and Software works in coordination to create a moving group of furniture assemblies. Most of the technologies used in this system can be found other household goods like vacuum cleaners, lawn mowers etc.
Since every floor is different, product should be smart enough to understand the map of the floor. The system creates a map of the space using Machine Learning the first few times it moves across the floor. The robotic structure and the software allows the system to build up a picture of the room to adjust its parameters for an optimum performance. The Machine Learning helps in comparing this map to other physical forces against it, such as a person sitting or standing in its path, animals or other furniture.
Hitting The Market
This IKEA Robotic Furniture system will be launched in Hong Kong and Japan next year. Later on, IKEA will be expanding into other regions with a product tailored to the particular living conditions of the area.
More To Read
Smart Lighting Solutions For Your Home To Consider
Source: Engadget
