You don’t need to look too hard to see the signs: government incentives, the growing number of electric cars on the roads, and the electric charging points that are popping up around our cities. But in a future in which our cars will drive and park themselves, who will take on the manual task of plugging in the car to recharge its batteries?

The answer to this question lies within RoboValley, for it’s here that start-up, ROCSYS, is developing a ‘soft’ robotic arm and computer vision technology to enable the fully automated charging of electric vehicles. Without the need for human input, plugging and unplugging will become faster and safer. It will become possible to use high voltages safely during the automated charging of commercial vehicles.

ROCSYS received a mark of confidence from investors last autumn when it secured seed funds from Estonia-based fund, SuperAngel, and Dutch funds, Forward.one and UNIIQ. The funds have allowed the start-up to grow the team with the addition of three new roboticists. More hires are likely to follow later this year. ROCSYS is now able to intensify development of their software, hardware and computer-vision system which will help them achieve their goal of the robot getting the plug in the socket in under thirty seconds.

This start-up’s development is not restricted to the lab. After installing a system at TU Delft’s Green Village last autumn, ROCSYS is now teaming up with an industrial partner which supplies electric buses, trucks and automated guided vehicles, to test its systems in the field.