April 02, 2026
Boulder, CO — April 2, 2026 — Industrial robots have long excelled in structured, repetitive production environments. But many real-world automation challenges — including applications like commercial restroom cleaning, food processing plant sanitation, and vehicle washing — involve constantly changing geometry, irregular surfaces, and environments that resist fixed programming.
MoveIt Pro 9.0 strengthens the perception-to-motion capabilities required to automate these high-variability surface workflows. This release introduces expanded scan-and-plan behaviors, enhanced ML-based mask filtering tools, and a modernized motion execution foundation designed to support adaptive robotic systems operating in dynamic environments.
Unlike traditional low-mix, high-volume automation, surface-driven tasks require robots to scan an object’s geometry in real-time and generate safe, collision-aware toolpaths across variable contours. MoveIt Pro 9.0 expands support for these workflows with:
- Automated contour extraction and rasterized Cartesian path generation from point clouds
- AI-driven 2D mask filtering and bounding box analysis for improved perception reliability
- ICP-based point cloud alignment for merged surface scans
- Whole-body motion control with built-in collision checking and joint limit enforcement
- Native support for mobile manipulation robots that coordinate arms and wheels
- A simplified and modernized user interface for debugging and introspection
These capabilities are supporting deployments across emerging sanitation and cleaning robotics applications.
In the vehicle care sector, Autowash applies MoveIt Pro to automate surface-aware washing across varying vehicle shapes and sizes.
“Every vehicle presents different contours and surface conditions,” said Dennis Dreeszen, Autowash. “MoveIt Pro’s perception-to-motion pipeline allows us to generate consistent coverage while maintaining safe operation around unpredictable geometry.”
Hivebotics, a developer of autonomous mobile restroom cleaning robots, uses MoveIt Pro to manage adaptive surface coverage across varied restroom geometries. See the full case study and recorded webinar with Hivebotics.
“Restroom environments are highly variable — from fixtures to partitions to layout changes between facilities,” said Rishab Patwari, CEO, Hivebotics. “MoveIt Pro enables us to convert perception data into reliable, surface-following motion without rebuilding workflows for every new location.”
CleanBotix, focused on food processing plant sanitation, leverages MoveIt Pro to address the challenges of cleaning complex industrial equipment with strict safety requirements. See the full case study and recorded webinar with CleanBotix.
“Sanitation in food plants demands precision, repeatability, and adaptability,” said Adam Jacques, CleanBotix. “The enhanced scan-and-plan and motion safety capabilities in MoveIt Pro 9.0 help us automate tasks that traditionally required manual intervention.”
MoveIt Pro 9.0 also introduces a redesigned teleoperation and training data collection system with integrated collision checking, multi-arm support, and coordinated mobile manipulation control, providing a safe and responsive foundation for supervised or semi-autonomous workflows that combine mobility and manipulation. In addition, a fully refreshed user interface improves debugging, visualization, and workflow configuration for robotics development teams.
Together, these updates reflect a broader shift in robotics toward adaptive automation — enabling robots to operate effectively in environments where geometry changes, surfaces vary, and traditional pre-programmed approaches fall short.
MoveIt Pro 9.0 is available now. For more information, visit MoveIt Pro.
PickNik Robotics helps companies bring their robotics vision to life—from ideation through to production. As experts in unstructured robotics, PickNik enables organizations to develop, validate, and deploy advanced robotic so lutions more quickly and with less risk. The team’s mission is to make robotic automation accessible and impactful for every industry.
MoveIt Pro is PickNik Robotics’ commercial robotics software platform that extends the capabilities of the open-source MoveIt project. Designed for unstructured environments, MoveIt Pro provides powerful tools for motion planning, grasping, perception, and behavior sequencing. With pre-built robot behaviors and a modular runtime architecture, MoveIt Pro significantly reduces engineering effort and time-to-deployment. Its hardware-agnostic design supports a wide range of commercial and custom robotic arms, making it ideal for scalable automation across space, manufacturing, and logistics sectors.
