The Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG) is now the first U.S. airport to deploy Avidbots‘ Neo floor-scrubbing robot. During a pilot program with Kitchener, Ontario-based Avidbots that began in November 2019, CVG used Neo to clean an average of 200,000 square feet of flooring per week.

Now that it’s officially deployed, Avidbots’ Neo is currently cleaning for six hours at a time, which is the maximum time it can run on one charge. Neo has two tanks, one for clean water and one for dirty water. This is important, according to CVG, because it’s putting disinfectant into the clean water tank to ensure dirty water doesn’t get re-used to clean the floors.

An Avidbots spokesperson told The Robot Report CVG didn’t accelerate deployment of Neo per se, but that it did push Neo into service as quickly as possible to help sanitize CVG during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“At CVG, we aim to embrace what’s next in all that we do,” said Candace McGraw, CEO of CVG Airport. “Introducing new technologies to elevate the passenger experience is critical to our business. In the challenging and uncertain times we find ourselves, making sure our facilities are safe and clean is our top priority, so Neo has been a great asset to our team to ensure a high standard of cleanliness is met.”

After an initial facility-mapping process, Neo can autonomously clean an environment thanks to proprietary software, 3D sensors and cameras. Connected to the cloud through WiFi and 4G, Neo includes 24×7 monitoring and automatically receives software updates to add new functionality.

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“CVG is one of the world’s most innovative airports, deploying the latest technologies to deliver the very best passenger experience, so we aren’t surprised they are the first airport in the U.S. to deploy the Avidbots Neo floor-scrubbing robot,” said Faizan Sheikh, CEO and Co-founder of Avidbots. “Neo works 24×7 to keep CVG’s facilities spic and span, ensuring a safe and healthy environment for airport visitors, passengers and staff.”

While CVG is the first U.S. airport to use Avidbots’ Neo, it is already used in many airports worldwide, including Paris Charles de Gaulle, Singapore Changi, Tokyo Narita, Tokyo Haneda, Osaka Kansai, Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International, and Ben Gurion.

Founded in 2014 by Pablo Molina and Sheikh, Avidbots raised a $23.6 million in Series B funding in March 2019. The round was led by returning investor True Ventures, and it brought the company’s venture capital financing to a total of $36 million.

The commercial floor cleaning market accounts for an estimated $5 billion in global sales annually.