PIXIES

Pixies is a hi-tech startup that has developed a zero-impact system that combines Autonomous Mobile Robots, equipped with AI, and smart solar-powered benches, in which the robots are stored and re-charged. The system was created to solve the cleaning problem in urban contexts directly through the city. Indeed, the mobile robots are little autonomous sweepers, which are able to get around the surroundings whilst collecting waste and avoiding obstacles, both static and dynamic, to then dock insid... e the bench and be charged thanks to solar energy. Our aim is to develop an urban space which takes advantage of IoT devices, scattered around the city, to constantly sense and respond to the environment, while collecting useful data that will improve the management of the entire urban realm. Pixies’s strength is its bottom-up approach to the problem of cleaning within cities, which ensures a very high level of efficiency, since it is a 24/7 on site, quick and sustainable solution. Moreover, thanks to the presence of the smart benches, we will have fixed charging stations directly installed around the city, thus giving a new piece of urban furniture, useful both for the environment and for the citizens. It's important to point out that the implementation of Pixies for cleaning purposes is only the beginning. Please, bear in mind that this system can be used within cities for a thousand other applications (delivery, first aid, mobile charging for vehicles, etc.), always remaining bottom-up, efficient and sustainable because it is embedded with the urban space. The competitive advantage of Pixies is its bottom-up approach to the problem of cleaning. Indeed, Pixies integrates the robots directly into the city, through the use of smart benches as charging bases for them. So far, Pixies has installed the prototype of the robot and the smart bench in the courtyard of the mixed-use building ( residential, hotel and offices) where the company is based, here in Rome, making it active and supervised by ourselves every day. The system works perfectly. It's able to operate up to 8 hours per day, covering an area of 2'000 sqm, both indoor (300 sqm) and outdoor (1'700 sqm). As results, the cleaning efficiency has been increased of about 30% and the related cost has been, therefore, reduced of about 40%. Our closest competitors are : Trombia, Enway, Idriverplus, TSM. However, we can also add to these other companies that have developed solutions for the autonomous indoor cleaning. These are, for instance: Fybots,Cyberdyne, Avidbots, Adlatus and Makita.