Sevensense Robotics

Sevensense Robotics AG is a robot-navigation technology company headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, spun out of the ETH Zurich Autonomous Systems Lab in 2018. ABB Robotics took a minority stake in 2021 and completed a full acquisition in January 2024; Sevensense continues to operate from Zurich as ABB's product center for visual-SLAM navigation and still serves non-ABB customers.

The company's technology is visual simultaneous localization and mapping, using arrays of cameras and an inertial measurement unit to build a 3D map of a facility and localize a vehicle within it, rather than relying on 2D lasers or fixed infrastructure such as reflectors or magnetic tape. Its Alphasense Position system provides this camera-based localization for autonomous mobile robots and forklifts, distinguishing fixed structures from moving people, pallets, and other vehicles. The related Alphasense Tracker applies the same approach to positioning manually driven industrial trucks, so one facility map covers both automated and human-operated vehicles. Sevensense positions its stack as hardware-agnostic, built to integrate into AMR platforms made by other manufacturers.

Before the ABB deal, Sevensense employed about 35 people, with customers among makers of autonomous forklifts and cleaning machines, addressing material handling, floor cleaning, delivery, and inspection inside warehouses.