Vacuuming
May Soon Get Easier
Friendly
and Hoover are working together
to design and develop a robotic
vacuum cleaner.
 "Consumers
have always looked to Hoover,
the leader, for the next generation
of floor care products,"
said Keith Minton, Hoover
president. "They are
ready for a breakthrough product
that will help them save time
and simplify their lives by
relieving them from a routine
cleaning chore."
The product
– to be introduced at
a later date – is designed
for the domestic sector and
will represent the ultimate
in home cleaning convenience.
It will be an easy-to-operate,
"intelligent" floor
surface cleaner that functions
autonomously, simply and reliably
to provide a clean and healthy
home environment.
The Hoover/Friendly partnership
pairs the innovative cleaning
technology and design expertise
of Hoover, the North American
floor care leader, with exclusive
RoboScan® navigational
technology from Friendly,
which will manufacture the
product. Friendly is one of
the world's leading players
in consumer and home robotics
and is best known for its
Robomower® line of fully
automatic lawn mowers, designed
for domestic lawns.
The alliance between the two
companies launches a new floor
care category and is expected
to result in future collaborations
on products. These efforts
signal a giant leap forward
in liberating American lifestyles
from repetitive and time-consuming
household chores.
"Our joint venture with
Friendly represents a remarkable
meshing of technology and
talent that will result in
a very strong product –
not a novelty product, but
one that will deliver true
consumer benefits," said
Keith Minton. "It is
a pleasure to partner with
a company that holds the Hoover
ideals of innovation, quality
and consumer convenience as
its own hallmarks."
"We are excited about
the opportunity to work with
a category leader like Hoover,
and adapt our robotics technology
to a floor care application
for the first time,"
said Udi Peless, Friendly
Robotics CEO. "Every
day in this project has been
a wonderful experience in
blending the processes and
values of a mature U.S. corporation
with the culture of a young
technology company."
"We are leveraging the
technology that we have developed
for our successful Robomower®
line of robotic mowers and
utilizing it in an indoor
application, thus expanding
our home robotics product
line to cover outdoor as well
as indoor applications."
Published:
August 28, 2002
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RoboScout
Personal Robot 
