How Calmantech Goals to Beat Low-cost Robots with Smarter Design

Within the high-stakes world of logistics, area is cash—and mobility is the whole lot. Conventional warehouse robots typically battle in tight areas, slowing down operations or forcing expensive redesigns. Calmantech, a Korean robotics firm, thinks it has a greater approach ahead. At CES 2026, it’s going to promote its Ball Whell Expertise as used within the CMB-90: a compact, omnidirectional warehouse robotic constructed for the following technology of high-efficiency distribution facilities.

The issue Calmantech got down to remedy is obvious: warehouses are getting extra crowded, and the demand for sooner throughput retains rising. Most legacy robots depend on fastened paths or broad turning circles, which doesn’t work properly within the slender corridors and compact layouts of some success facilities. People can pivot and switch inside a three-foot-wide aisle—why not robots?

Sadly, there’s a extreme scarcity of (human) labor in lots of elements of the world, together with South Korea, and the necessity for robots has by no means been higher in some areas.

Enter the CMB-90 (photograph above). This robotic stands out because of its “Ball Wheel Expertise,” which has similarities in idea to the ball mechanism utilized in old-school laptop mice with an precise ball inside. Slightly than rolling on fastened wheels, the CMB-90 glides throughout flooring utilizing friction-based ball wheels that enable for motion in any course—ahead, sideways, or a spin in place. This makes the robotic particularly nimble in confined areas, reducing down journey time and rising the quantity of usable warehouse ground.

The innovation doesn’t cease at motion. The CMB-90 helps a payload of as much as 90 kilograms. Whereas it will possibly transfer in any course, the robotic is optimized for ahead movement, assisted by a sturdy imaginative and prescient system: a two RGB digicam module within the entrance, and extra cameras within the again, left, and proper. This setup offers it a large discipline of view for impediment avoidance and spatial consciousness, even in dynamic environments.

Like many fashionable warehouse robots, the CMB-90 communicates via a mesh Wi-Fi community, transmitting knowledge repeatedly for real-time fleet administration. Nevertheless, Calmantech understands that almost all services can’t merely exchange their previous infrastructure in a single day. That’s why the CMB-90 is constructed to co-exist with legacy robots, making it simpler for firms to improve regularly as an alternative of committing to a full system alternative.

Calmantech CEO, Jaehwan Choi (left)

A pure query is whether or not Calmantech’s ball-based mobility could be vulnerable to mud or particles. The corporate acknowledges that, like several friction-based system, cleanliness issues—however says the advantages far outweigh the trade-offs, particularly in new services designed with robotics in thoughts. The corporate says its Ball-Wheel might face up to industrial situations.

The enterprise problem is stiff. Calmantech is getting into a world market the place Chinese language-made robots dominate on worth. However the firm is betting that velocity, effectivity, and versatile deployment will win out in the long term, particularly in Europe and the U.S. Their technique focuses on new build-outs first, the place warehouses may be designed from the bottom as much as reap the benefits of CMB-90’s compact footprint and superior agility.

The design lands itself to many adaptation, and Calmantech made positive this platform is customizable and plenty of various kinds of robots may be constructed based mostly on the wheel platform.

Based in Korea, Calmantech isn’t any stranger to troublesome environments. Its early work focused growing old industrial zones with declining populations and poor working situations. That historical past has formed its mission: to create robots that may do extra with much less—much less area, much less time, and finally, much less value.

With the CMB-90, Calmantech isn’t simply making one other warehouse robotic. It’s providing a better, extra agile coworker that matches into the trendy logistics puzzle with out asking the entire system to alter. And that could be precisely what the trade wants.

Filed in Robots. Learn extra about CES, CES 2026, Korea and Robotics.