Everyone knows the robots are coming, so we should probably get to work figuring out how we can coexist. That’s the mission of Veo Robotics, which is working on a system that gives robots spatial awareness of every object and obstacle in their reach, from debris to people and everything in between. People and robots working together can accomplish far more than either one on its own.

Fraunhofer researchers created something along these lines, but Veo’s approach seems more dynamic and responsive, relying not on safe and unsafe zones but doing object recognition and other semantic modeling, 3dnews.ru  reports.

The robot operates as it would otherwise, except now it knows the exact location and size of everything in its field of view. If a human or vehicle intrudes, or a piece breaks, or there’s some other deviation from the norm, it can slow or stop. Critically, if the system is ever not 100 percent sure that it’s safe — for instance, if a camera is obscured or it can’t see behind a large piece — the robot comes to a full stop.

The company is testing its prototypes in production environments with partners it can’t name but Sobalvarro assured me are not small fry. The next step is to upgrade from temporary gear (for instance, using Kinects as the depth sensors) to safety-rated hardware and get all their regulatory ducks in a row. They’re looking at 2019 for a full deployment, but you can expect to hear more from them well ahead of that.