Carnegie Robotics to collaborate with GPS maker

Aim is to make better automated products

Carnegie Robotics announced Tuesday it is collaborating with a startup to make automated equipment — products used in fields such as self-driving cars, agriculture, mining and the military — cheaper and more accurate.

Carnegie Robotics, which spun out of Carnegie Mellon University in 2010, is partnering with Swift Navigation, a San Francisco-based startup that builds global positioning systems for robots to sense the world around them. The companies are working on products that will be unveiled in May at the Association of Unmanned Vehicles International Xponential 2017 conference in Dallas.

Swift’s GPS systems developed primarily for autonomous cars — which, according to the startup, are 100 times more accurate than a traditional GPS — will be used by Carnegie Robotics for its line of outdoor robots, said Steve DiAntonio, its chief executive officer.

“Thanks to its focus on high accuracy and low cost, Swift Navigation has established itself as a leader and innovator in the world of high-precision GNSS,” Mr. DiAntonio said in a press release, referring to global navigation satellite systems. “Swift is an ideal partner to work with us on rapid development of robots and autonomous systems.”

Lawrenceville-based Carnegie Robotics is not a self-driving car venture. Rather, it was founded by CMU researchers who wanted to use autonomous technology to

push a variety of products into the market each year, such as a mine-detection device for the military or, an autonomous cleaner for commercial buildings.

That diversity was appealing to Swift.

“Swift’s technology is perfectly suited for the world of robotics, and we couldn’t do better than working with the renowned industry leaders at Carnegie Robotics,” said Timothy Harris, Swift Navigation’s chief executive officer, said in a press release. “We are looking forward to developing an exciting line of products and making more joint announcements in the near future.”