Ubica wins European robotics award

The company is a spin-off of the University of Bremen. It aims to make robotics and artificial intelligence useful for the retail sector.

Bremen-based start-up Ubica Robotics, together with the University of Bremen and the IT subsidiary of drugstore chain DM, Dmtech, has received the Eurobotics Technology Transfer Award 2022. The university spin-off was awarded the prize because it had succeeded in transferring research results from European robotics research to industrial applications to an outstanding degree.

Ubica aims to use intelligent robots to enable more efficient logistics and more comprehensive customer service in stationary retail. Started as a university research project in 2017, the venture gave birth to the startup three years later. The start-up generates a so-called digital twin of the store, which provides numerous important pieces of information on the operation of the store. These range from replenishment needs and product placement to the packing of pallets in the central warehouse. Meanwhile, Ubica robots are said to be able, for example, to navigate autonomously through a retail store, recognizing the stock levels of products on the shelves.

"Our robots enable a significant improvement in a store's internal operations," says Georg Bartels, co-founder and chief technology officer of Ubica. David Walter of Dmtech, which is working with them, agrees. He says: "Individual product recommendations or the connection of delivery services are conceivable, for example. We would like to offer many of the advantages of online stores to the customers of brick-and-mortar stores as well."