XOsight is a Dutch start-up that was founded in the Micro Air Vehicle Lab of Delft University of Technology. The company develops autonomous drones with advanced situational awareness. They are aimed at solving the problem of inventory counting that warehouses face. Due to high resolution cameras and onboard AI processing, inventory data are obtained in real time.
Easy Engineering: What are the main areas of activity of the company?
XOsight: Our company is mainly focused on the logistics industry. It is involved with developing high-resolution smart cameras that can scan labels. In the case that there are no labels, cameras use computer vision and artificial intelligence to process inventory images. These cameras are integrated with drones that will autonomously fly around the warehouse and count inventory.
E.E: What’s the news for 2020 about new products?
XOsight: In 2020, we started to look into different applications to the products that we were developing. Therefore, we added vehicle-mounted smart cameras to our portfolio. These are smart cameras that are typically attached to a forklift and count inventory as the forklift is drive around the warehouse.
E.E: At what stage is the market where you are currently active?
XOsight: The logistics market is open to innovation. Despite the fact that many processes are automated, inventory counting is still done manually. This is where drone technology comes in. Although drones are still not mass produced, they are developing at a rapid pace. They could potentially replace the manual counting process, resulting in large savings in cost and time.
E.E: What can you tell us about market trends?
XOsight: While at the beginning drones were considered to be relatively expensive, now the market is becoming more and more saturated. Competition is making prices more affordable and pushing drone companies to innovate their products and enter new markets. Therefore, drone companies have entered into a more diverse range of commercial markets. I think that in the future drones will be even more widely used commercially.
E.E: What are the most innovative products marketed?
XOsight: In the inventory management sector, the most exciting innovation is the use of artificial intelligence enhanced computer vision. This involves using smart cameras that will do a 3D reconstruction of the scanned area. In this way, the number and size of boxes can be accurately estimated without labels.
E.E: What estimations do you have for 2020?
XOsight: I believe that the COVID-19 pandemic has made many predictions for 2020 invalid. Because the economy shrunk due to the pandemic, many companies’ activities slowed down. Yet, some sectors such as e-commerce are doing well. I think that the industries that are related to such sectors will continue innovating. This is because they do not want to fall behind and lose profit to competition.
