See Multimodal perception
- In the U1 Series
- Tables, guests, staff, service areas, and moving obstacles, tracked as the room changes.
- In a custom system
- The objects, people, and hazards of your site, and the changes that matter to the task.
Custom robots that start from the site, not the catalog.
Synthra Robotics Engineering is the custom engineering division of Synthra Robotics. It designs and builds robotic systems for organizations with unique physical automation requirements, starting from the perception, navigation, and coordination work behind the U1 Series.
Project packet
- Environment
- Your site, as it runs today
- Task
- Work no catalog robot does
- Stack
- Synthra intelligence platform
- Body
- Engineered for the task
- Discover
- Scope
- Prototype
- Validate
- Deploy
When is a custom robotic system the right answer?
A custom system makes sense when the work is physical, the environment is shared with people or changes during the day, and no off-the-shelf robot can do the task without fixed routes, floor markers, or rebuilding the site around it. If the job is restaurant or hotel service, start with the U1 Series instead.
Service work the U1 Series was not shaped for.
Read-back · Hospitality
- Environment
- Guest floors, back-of-house corridors, and the routes between them.
- Must perceive
- Guests, staff, service points, trolleys, doors, and whatever was left in the aisle.
- Must decide
- Which request comes first, which route is clear, and when to yield to a guest.
- Must do
- Carry, hand over, wait, and return, around people who never read a manual.
- From the stack
- Perception, conversational service, contextual navigation, fleet coordination, docking.
- Engineered new
- A body, payload, and service sequence for the task.
Moving material through buildings designed for people.
Read-back · Logistics
- Environment
- Storerooms, corridors, loading areas, and aisles shared with staff.
- Must perceive
- Carts, shelving, loads, doorways, people on foot, and aisles that were clear an hour ago.
- Must decide
- Pickup order, route, and what to do when a path is blocked or a drop point is full.
- Must do
- Collect, carry, and deliver without tape lines, fixed tracks, or a dedicated lane.
- From the stack
- Spatial understanding, contextual navigation, fleet coordination, docking.
- Engineered new
- Load handling and a chassis sized for the payload.
Repeated rounds where the value is noticing what changed.
Read-back · Inspection
- Environment
- Production floors, plant rooms, and service corridors walked on a schedule.
- Must perceive
- Equipment, access routes, people working nearby, and differences from the last round.
- Must decide
- Round order, where to stop, and how to re-route when an area is closed.
- Must do
- Reach each inspection point, capture what is needed, and tie every observation to a place.
- From the stack
- Perception, spatial understanding, contextual navigation, docking.
- Engineered new
- Sensors for what must be inspected, and the reporting it feeds.
The moving parts between fixed machines.
Read-back · Industrial automation
- Environment
- Production areas where people, carts, and machines share the floor.
- Must perceive
- Stations, work cells, material, personnel, and the state of the floor around them.
- Must decide
- Which station needs service, in what order, and when the floor is too busy to cross.
- Must do
- Move material between stations as part of an existing process, with a clear handover to people.
- From the stack
- Perception, spatial understanding, contextual navigation, vision-language-action, fleet coordination.
- Engineered new
- Integration with the process and the equipment it serves, as scoped.
Robots built to be studied, extended, and pushed.
Read-back · Research platforms
- Environment
- Labs, test floors, and the real spaces where a research question has to be answered.
- Must perceive
- What the research question needs, with the data behind each decision kept.
- Must decide
- Anything from full autonomy to a single layer under study.
- Must do
- Run experiments repeatably, and log what the robot saw, decided, and did.
- From the stack
- The layers the research needs, exposed as scoped with Synthra.
- Engineered new
- The platform, instrumentation, and interfaces the research needs.
Machines that must work with no operator at the controls.
Read-back · Autonomous systems
- Environment
- Large or mixed sites where a machine has to operate on its own for long periods.
- Must perceive
- Free space, people, vehicles, and the landmarks that give a site its structure.
- Must decide
- Where to go, how to get there, and when to stop and wait.
- Must do
- Operate, recover from disturbances, and return to charge without being sent.
- From the stack
- Perception, spatial understanding, contextual navigation, adaptive autonomy, docking.
- Engineered new
- A platform and control tuned to the site’s terrain and duty cycle.
Problems that do not have a category yet.
Read-back · Specialized robotic applications
- Environment
- Defined with you in discovery.
- Must perceive
- Scoped from the task, not assumed.
- Must decide
- Scoped from what success means to you.
- Must do
- The physical work no existing robot does.
- From the stack
- Whatever the problem needs.
- Engineered new
- Whatever the stack does not cover.
Seven areas where the Synthra stack applies. Each read-back is an illustrative scope, not a client project.
The body is new. The intelligence isn’t.
Synthra brings the intelligence stack that already runs the U1 Series: multimodal perception, spatial understanding, contextual navigation, language-grounded task execution, multi-robot coordination, and automatic docking. A custom project adapts that stack to a new environment and task, and engineers the physical system around it, instead of starting from nothing.
Understand Spatial and vision-language understanding
- In the U1 Series
- A working model of the venue, from kitchen to dock, joined to the menu and the service context.
- In a custom system
- A semantic map of your facility: zones, work points, access routes, and places a robot should never stop.
Decide Task and route reasoning
- In the U1 Series
- Which table, which route, which task first, decided at the moment of service.
- In a custom system
- Task order, route, and priority, decided against your rules and what is happening now.
Act Navigation and control
- In the U1 Series
- Decisions become movement: carrying orders through a busy dining room.
- In a custom system
- Motion and control tuned to your payload, floor, and duty cycle.
Adapt Continuous re-planning
- In the U1 Series
- A chair moves or a guest steps out, and the plan changes.
- In a custom system
- The site changes through the day, and the plan changes with it.
Coordinate Multi-robot coordination
- In the U1 Series
- Task assignment, traffic, and charging shared across a U1 Max fleet.
- In a custom system
- Several machines, one understanding of the site, one queue of work.
Dock Operational autonomy
- In the U1 Series
- Return to standby, dock, charge, and report available.
- In a custom system
- The system manages its own availability between tasks.
How does a custom robotics engagement work?
A custom engagement runs in five stages: discover the environment and task, scope a system on Synthra’s stack, prototype early, validate on site against agreed success criteria, and deploy with the people who will work beside it. Each stage ends with something you can check before the next one begins.
Discover
Synthra studies the work where it happens: the space, the people in it, the task, the constraints, and what success means to you.
Ends with A shared problem definition you can check against reality.
Scope
The problem is mapped onto the Synthra stack. What already exists is reused, what is missing is designed, and what is out of scope is written down.
Ends with A system scope and a plan to a first working prototype.
Prototype
A working system is built early and run against the real task, not a demonstration script. Perception, behavior, and hardware change together as it meets the site.
Ends with A prototype doing the task in a representative environment.
Validate
The system runs where it will work and is measured against the criteria agreed in discovery. Safety and certification requirements identified during scoping are planned into this stage.
Ends with Evidence, against the agreed criteria, that the system does the job.
Deploy
The system is installed, commissioned, and handed over with the people who will work beside it, on the site’s real schedule.
Ends with A system in service, and a team that knows how to work with it.
Project packet
- Environment
- Surveyed where the work happens
- Task
- Defined with your team
- Criteria
- Measured on site
- Stack
- Layers reused, gaps designed
- Body
- Specified for the task
- System
- In service, handed over
- Discover
- Scope
- Prototype
- Validate
- Deploy
Questions teams ask before they build.
Something else? Ask it in a custom robotics inquiry, or read about Synthra Robotics.
What is Synthra Robotics Engineering?
Synthra Robotics Engineering is the custom engineering division of Synthra Robotics. It takes on physical automation problems that off-the-shelf robots do not solve, for commercial and industrial organizations, starting from the environment and the task and drawing on the same perception, navigation, and coordination technology as the U1 Series.
What kinds of custom robotic systems does Synthra build?
Synthra Robotics Engineering takes on physical automation problems that off-the-shelf robots do not solve, in areas such as hospitality, logistics, inspection, industrial automation, research platforms, and specialized autonomous systems, drawing on the same perception, navigation, and coordination technology as the U1 Series.
How does a custom robotics project start?
It starts with the environment and the task, not a catalog. Synthra studies where the robot must operate, what it must perceive and handle, and what success means, then scopes a system and a path to a working prototype before any long commitment is made.
Is a custom Synthra system built on U1 technology?
Yes. Custom systems draw on the same intelligence platform as the U1 Series: perception, spatial understanding, contextual navigation, language-grounded tasks, coordination, and docking. The physical system is engineered for the task, so it may share U1 hardware, adapt it, or be designed new. Which applies is decided in scoping.
Are the application areas on this page past client projects?
No. The application areas on this page describe where Synthra’s perception, navigation, and coordination technology applies. They are areas of capability, not a list of completed deployments. In the first conversation, Synthra will be specific about what already exists in the stack for your problem and what would be new engineering.
How long does a custom robotics project take?
It depends on how much of the problem the existing stack already covers and how much of the physical system is new. Synthra sets a timeline during scoping, once the environment, task, and success criteria are defined, rather than quoting one before the problem is understood.
Can a custom system work with our existing equipment and software?
It can be scoped in. Discovery identifies what the robot must connect to, what it must work around, and what cannot change, and scoping states which integrations are in the project and which are not. Nothing is assumed to connect until it has been specified and tested.
How are safety and certification handled in a custom project?
Safety and certification requirements depend on the sector, the site, and the task. They are identified during scoping and planned into the engineering work. Synthra does not claim certifications a system has not earned; the status of any certification is stated plainly for each project.
Bring the problem. We’ll read it back.
The first reply to a custom inquiry is a read-back: Synthra’s understanding of your environment, your task, and what success means, for you to correct before anything is scoped.
What should you prepare before contacting Synthra?
Bring the problem, not a specification. Describe the environment the robot will work in, the task it must perform, the people and equipment around it, the constraints it must respect, and how you will judge success. Photos, floor plans, and videos of the work help. Nothing needs to be final.
Your brief
- Environment
- Where the robot will work, and who and what shares that space.
- Task
- What it must do, how often, and what it carries or handles.
- Constraints
- Hours, access, rules, existing systems, and anything that cannot change.
- Success
- The first measure you would check to know it works.
- Timing
- When you need a first working system, and what sets that date.
- Material
- Floor plans, photos, or video of the work today, shared after first contact.
- Written
- Sent
- Read back
Incomplete is fine. Discovery exists to fill the gaps.
- All inquiry types
- Working on a research question rather than a system? Start a research collaboration inquiry