Singapore start-up Strutt unveils voice-controlled autonomous mobility device

SINGAPORE – Autonomous mobility devices designed to help users navigate buildings with large spaces may soon become a common sight.

After three years of development since Strutt was founded in 2023, the Singapore start-up unveiled its autonomous mobility vehicle, called ev1, at the world’s largest tech trade show in Las Vegas, Nevada, in January.

Locally, Strutt is working to bring the ev1 to hospitals here so that patients and visitors can use them on-site, said company founder Tony Hong during an interview with The Straits Times.

“We recognise that there’s a huge need in Singapore because of the ageing society – hospitals have a difficult time finding porters, who we observe might be even older than the patients being pushed around,” he said.

Dr Hong declined to name the hospitals because of confidentiality constraints, but added: “An autonomous transport service can definitely be a huge relief, and we want to be part of that solution.”

While wheelchairs and mobility devices have long required users to steer or manually propel themselves, the ev1 whisked curious attendees around the CES 2026 show floor in a largely hands-free experience.

Equipped with a range of tools, including light detection and ranging (LIDAR) instruments, 25 environmental sensors and two cameras, the ev1 shows users a top-down view of its surroundings via a screen attached to the side of the right armrest.

By simply pressing a point of interest, the compact vehicle can autonomously calculate the most efficient route to reach the intended destination while avoiding static and dynamic obstacles such as passing pedestrians and walls, said Dr Hong.

In Waypoints mode, users can create a list of sites they commonly visit using coordinates – such as a specific store at a shopping mall or a classroom in a university building. With this information, users can then tell the ev1 where they want to go through a microphone.

An anchoring technology behind these features is simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM), a core technology in autonomous systems. SLAM allows vehicles to not only detect obstacles and points of interest in real time, but also retain this knowledge and build a back-end map of unfamiliar environments, said Dr Hong.

The ev1 can understand verbal instructions in virtually any language, and being equipped with large language models such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT allows it to reason and interpret commands.

“So if a user is at home, they can tell the ev1 to go to the fridge,” said Dr Hong. “Or it can be even simpler, just by saying you want to drink some milk.”

During a test drive by ST on the show floor, the ev1 smoothly glided around attendees walking past Strutt’s booth in all directions.

It is able to see obstacles within 20m of itself, with various types distinguished by different colours on the screen.

A group of grey dots indicates static obstacles such as walls and furniture, while moving humans and robots appear in purple. Feet are specifically shown in blue, and staircases and cliffs are marked in yellow and orange.

When several people walked in front of the ev1 suddenly, unaware of its path, the vehicle was able to stop quickly while still maintaining the user’s stability and comfort.

Though the ev1 is technically capable of navigating autonomously from one location to another in an urban environment – such as from home to school – users are advised against doing so for safety reasons, said Dr Hong. “Our sensors are still not good enough to recognise changing conditions in the open such as traffic lights and moving cars on the road.”

To address this, an important feature of the ev1 is its over-the-air system, which allows Strutt to continually upgrade the vehicle’s software capabilities and deploy real-time fixes, said Dr Hong.

The over 100-strong team behind Strutt has made rapid progress since the previous edition of CES in January 2025, when the team showcased the ev1’s initial capabilities in its prototype stage. Then, users could get to their intended destination by pushing the vehicle’s joystick in a general direction.

Though the ev1 might bear a slight resemblance to a wheelchair, its back motors have a combined torque of 120 newton-metre, similar to the amount of power that small cars have, said Dr Hong, who spent six years leading optoelectronics and LIDAR research at drone-maker DJI.

“We set out to make an everyday vehicle, so users should be able to go practically anywhere.

“For instance, sidewalks are the least maintained part of roads in many countries, with potholes. So the ev1 has to be equipped with a certain level of power to be able to handle those environmental conditions,” he added.

With a price tag of US$7,499 (S$9,700), interested buyers can pre-order the ev1 on the company’s website, with shipping to begin in the second quarter of 2026.

Those in Singapore will also be able to buy it from local personal mobility aid retailer Mobot soon, possibly at a lower price point, as the company is setting up a manufacturing plant locally.