Image: Left Hand Robotics

New BOLT platform enables equipment manufacturers to automate outdoor jobs, adding autonomous navigation, connected sensors and real-time operations to machines.

Left Hand Robotics, pioneer and manufacturer of self-driving smart robots for commercial turf and snow, has launched BOLT, a technology platform that transforms outdoor machinery and power equipment into smarter, more efficient, ready-to-work robots.

BOLT brings autonomous navigation, connected sensors, and real-time robot operations to outdoor power equipment and machines doing repetitive jobs across the globe. Building on Left Hand Robotics’ field-proven experience with its own robot tractors, BOLT allows OEMs to launch faster, reduce R&D costs, and tap into a unified platform with navigation, sensors, controls, software and apps.

BOLT focuses on several key areas to help with machine automation, including:

• autonomous navigation and telemetry
• smart sensors and cameras
• connected power equipment and controls
• cloud-based robot operations center and apps
• job planning, reporting and analysis

Because each OEM is likely to have different requirements or product needs, BOLT partners go through multiple deployment phases, including evaluation, development and deployment.

Partnering with OEMs. Left Hand Robotics soft-launched BOLT earlier this year and interest has been high from manufacturers needing more automation capabilities. The company is now collaborating with power equipment and machine manufacturers to incorporate BOLT features into their future product lines.

“Our team has learned a lot, building, testing, proving how autonomous tractors can work on tedious, dirty jobs in the real world. These are tough problems to solve and we have already invested more than 80 engineering years into the technology behind BOLT,” said Terry Olkin, CEO for Left Hand Robotics. “We’ll continue to build our own robots while offering BOLT to a limited number of OEMs in the first year.”