Segway and NVIDIA designed the Nova Carter platform to accelerate the development of autonomous forklifts and guided vehicles. Its wide sensor array, artificial intelligence, and adaptability enable Nova Carter to function safely among humans in dynamic, unstructured areas, claimed the companies.
Nova Carter made its debut at ROScon in October 2023. It features the Jetson AGX Orin 64GB module with 2TB SSD and a 10GbE PCIe Card.
The platform is intended to help expedite the development and creation of prototypes of autonomous mobile robots (AMRs). The system is expandable, but its baseline contains a sensor package suitable for those getting started with AMRs. The development platform includes embedded 2D and 3D lidar sensors as well as 3D vision cameras.
“With this Nova Carter platform, we put the world’s best edge AI computer, the Origin, and a collection of lidar cameras,” said Gerard Andrews, product marketing director at NVIDIA. “We a really rich sensor set so that anyone interested in building a next-generation autonomous robot or developing algorithms for the next-generation autonomous robot can get started on Day 1 with a platform with all the sensory input you need, all the on-device compute that you need.”
Nova Carter integrates with the NVIDIA Isaac autonomy platform, allowing it to efficiently perform a range of tasks including surround perception, 3D mapping, and autonomous navigation.
Tony Ho, vice president of business development at Segway, described the relationship with NVIDIA: “So obviously, NVIDIA is one of the best AI platforms these days on the market. By working with them, it becomes part of the ecosystem, and we grow together with it.”
“Beyond Nova Carter, we are open to partnering with pretty much any robotic company to help them build their next-generation robot and also help them scale a lot of … startup companies as well,” he said.
Nova Carter is ideal for collecting data for mapping test areas like a warehouse or a factory. The processed data can then be deployed into Carter to achieve full autonomy.
The platform has a maximum payload of 50 kg (110 lb.) and can operate for more than eight hours on a single charge. Its dimensions are 722 x 500 x 556 mm (28.4 x 19.7 x 21.9 in.).
