Altium Customer Success
Crover uses Altium to develop subterranean grain swimming robots
At the early stage of a startup like ours, the most valuable currency is time. Having tools that can get you to the end goal faster, use collaboration across the team, is essential. Altium became the tool of choice as the industry standard and radically changed the way we design boards and do electronics design at an industrial level.
Discover how Crover’s groundbreaking grain-swimming robotics technology is shaping a resilient future for global food supplies worldwide.
Crover has harnessed its proprietary 'grain swimming' technology to develop a robotic storage management system that delivers unprecedented accuracy in monitoring and maintaining grain quality, reducing waste, and securing a global food supply. The team partnered with Altium to streamline their ECAD/MCAD collaboration and component sourcing workflows, enabling the team to radically change how they design electronics.
- Saved time sourcing parts with Altium 365 BOM Management
- Streamlined cross-domain collaboration with CoDesigner
- Accelerated reviews with Browser-based Access & Sharing
Grain storage is a critical aspect of agricultural management, requiring regular checks to ensure grain remains in good condition and free from mold and insects. Traditionally, this process has involved laborious and dangerous methods, requiring a human to walk on top of grain bulks and sample them with spears. These risks have led some companies to forego regular monitoring of grain storage altogether, posing significant challenges in maintaining the quality and safety of the foods we all depend upon. To tackle this pressing issue, Crover has harnessed its proprietary 'grain swimming' technology to develop a robotic storage management system that delivers unprecedented accuracy in monitoring and maintaining grain quality, reducing waste, and securing our global food supply.
The Crover Effect
At the core of Crover’s innovative robotics technology is the Crover Effect, a groundbreaking discovery in granular physics and rheology that Lorenzo Conti, the company’s founder and CEO, meticulously researched and developed. This technology enables locomotion in bulk solids—such as grains, sand, and powders—similar to how plane wings move through air or boat rotors move through water.
The first commercial application of this technology, the Crover V1 robot, offers a portable solution designed to transform the cereals and oilseeds supply chain. The robot not only traverses grain heaps but also performs deep burrowing operations with its partner robot to aerate the grain and prevent crust formation.
Crover V1 quickly generates a 3D map of temperature and moisture levels across grain heaps, reducing the time required for monitoring. With high-resolution data available through Crover’s web app, farmers can visualize grain conditions and make informed decisions on ventilation or pest control. The robot’s remote operability and live video feed provide convenience and safety for its operators and eliminates the need to monitor grain bulks by hand.
Overcoming Traditional Collaboration Barriers
Before partnering with Altium, Crover relied on traditional methods to integrate its electronics and mechanical design processes. Manually importing and exporting design files between ECAD and MCAD tools proved cumbersome, error-prone, and lacked a method to track design changes between domains.
To address this challenge, Crover leveraged the Altium MCAD CoDesigner app from Altium 365. This app enabled Crover’s electronics and mechanical teams to synchronize design changes between Altium Designer and the most popular MCAD tools without having to manually exchange project files. The team could easily transfer a 3D enclosure model from their MCAD system to Altium Designer, ensuring that their PCB was accurately designed to account for physical space restrictions.
Additionally, both domains had access to a history of all accepted and rejected changes, enhancing visibility and accountability. Notifications of changes applied or rejected by Crover’s Mechanical Engineer were immediately available for their Electronics Engineer to review in Altium Designer.
Altium 365 introduced additional workflow improvements with its Browser-based Access and Sharing capabilities. By rendering project files in a browser, all members of Crover’s team could access, measure, search, cross-probe, and comment on designs from any device without the need for an ECAD license. This capability was particularly beneficial for troubleshooting board issues out in the field. Engineers were able to search for specific components on a PCB layout and cross-probe to associated schematics to troubleshoot the related circuits and chips.
In the past, we had a slow process of everything being quite isolated. So electrical teams had their software, and mechanical was working in another region in a quite clumsy process. So now with the advent of Atium 365, it makes the whole process a lot more streamlined with everyone working in the same sphere.
Streamlining Component Sourcing and Management
During a typical design process, Crover’s engineers had to divert time away from their core design activities to handle the sourcing and ordering of components. To streamline this process and save engineering time, Crover’s engineers turned to Altium 365’s BOM Management capabilities.
The team was able to create managed BOMs directly from their existing projects in Altium 365, and the BOM data was enriched with comprehensive insights. This enrichment included detailed part descriptions, manufacturer lifecycles, compliance details, up-to-date pricing and availability, alternates, and datasheets. With all of this data available within the context of their project, the team was able to make informed sourcing decisions.
One of the standout features that Crover utilized within Altium 365’s BOM Management tool was Octocart, which significantly simplified the team’s purchasing workflow. They were able to populate a shopping cart on their preferred supplier’s website with all parts listed in their BOM with a single click, saving time and reducing the potential for errors commonly associated with manual entry during the ordering process.
On 365 there’s the BOM tab, all of the components used in the board are there. All the information. All the datasheets. It definitely reduced the amount of time I’ve spent sourcing components, and also reduces the amount of time Lorenzo spends ordering components as well. Just because there’s a feature to go to one supplier, put everything in a basket, and send it away.
Revolutionizing Grain Storage with Crover and Altium
Crover has transformed grain storage management with its innovative technology that enhances grain quality monitoring and significantly reduces waste. By utilizing Altium MCAD CoDesigner, the team streamlined collaboration between their electronics and mechanical teams. Additionally, Altium 365's BOM Management capabilities enabled more accurate and time-efficient component sourcing and ordering, allowing Crover to focus their engineering time on the most critical challenges. Through these strategic integrations, Cover is shaping a resilient future for global food supplies worldwide.
