Robot cleaners win MIT Sloan's inaugural AI competition

Source: Smart Cities World Published: June 2, 2020

A developer of autonomous ground robots that safely disinfect high-traffic spaces has been announced winner of MIT’s inaugural Collaborative Intelligence Competition. motorCortex.ai beat out seven other finalists to win the $50,000 prize.

Launched by MIT last fall, the competition forms part of a larger educational programme conceived by MIT’s School of Engineering dean Anantha Chandrakasan.The initiative aims to advance the development of artificial intelligence (AI) to complement, collaborate with, and augment humans versus replacing them.

Robot cleaners

According to MIT, as Covid-19 necessitates the frequent disinfection of public spaces, motorCortex.ai’s offering addresses companies’ multiple cleaning challenges. Manual application of sprayed disinfectants requires careful attention to ensure the correct “soak time” to neutralise pathogens, and disinfectant toxicity raises safety concerns for the custodian due to frequent exposure.