Article
Service robot battery life and charging
In a well-designed fleet, battery is one of the factors used to decide which robot takes a job, not just a warning light. Hybot weighs remaining battery alongside task priority and distance when assigning work, and each robot has a configurable threshold below which it takes itself to charge and stops receiving tasks.
Written by Hybot operations lead, Deployment and operations lead, Hyrcan-Tech · · 5 min read
Battery as an input, not an alarm
The naive design treats charge as a warning: run normally, flash something at 20%, hope somebody notices. The consequence is predictable — one robot does all the work until it is flat, then the fleet is short a unit at exactly the moment the venue is busiest.
Hybot treats remaining battery as one of three factors in every assignment decision, weighed together with task priority and distance to pickup, and re-evaluated every two seconds. The mechanics are here.
The practical effect is that work spreads. The unit at 30% stops being the obvious choice for a long run even if it happens to be closest, and the fleet tends to arrive at the end of a shift in a similar state rather than with one exhausted robot and one that barely moved.
Automatic charging
Each robot carries its own persisted settings, including whether auto-charge is on and what its battery threshold is. Below the threshold the robot takes itself to a charging point and is skipped for auto-assignment until it is available again.
Two settings worth understanding as an operator:
- The threshold is per robot. A unit that does long runs can be given a higher one than a unit working a short loop.
- A robot can be marked inactive. It keeps broadcasting its state so you can still see it, but it is skipped for assignment. Visible is not the same as dispatchable, and that distinction is useful when a unit is being inspected.
Charger placement changes your capacity
This is the part venues underestimate.
Every minute a robot spends travelling to a charger is a minute not spent working, and it is a minute that scales with distance. A charging point tucked away in a back corridor because it looks tidy there quietly removes capacity from the fleet on every cycle.
Putting chargers close to the busiest run is one of the very few changes that increases effective fleet size without buying anything. It is worth arguing about during the site survey.
What we do not publish
Runtime hours, charge times and battery capacities belong to the specific robot model, and they are the manufacturer's figures rather than ours. We will not quote a number for "a service robot" as though the category had one. Ask us about the model proposed for your venue.
Where to go next
Cluster hub: Service robots explained.
Frequently asked questions
Why is battery part of the assignment decision?
- Because a robot that runs out partway through a task has not saved anyone time — it has created a recovery job. Weighing remaining charge when choosing which unit takes a job avoids sending the machine that cannot finish it, which a nearest-robot rule cannot do.
Do robots charge themselves automatically?
- Yes, where auto-charge is enabled. Each robot has a configurable battery threshold; below it the robot routes itself to a charging point and is skipped for auto-assignment until it is ready. Both the threshold and auto-charge are per-robot settings that persist.
Where should chargers go?
- Close to the busiest run, not tucked somewhere tidy. Every minute travelling to a distant charger is a minute of capacity lost, and charger placement is one of the few venue decisions that changes effective fleet size without buying another robot.
Where this fits
This page is part of Service robots: what they are and how they work. If you are working through the topic in order, these are the neighbouring pages.
What is a service robot?
A service robot performs useful work alongside people rather than inside a cage. The definition, the categories, and where the boundary sits.
How service robots navigate
Mapping, named points of interest, route planning and obstacle avoidance — how a service robot finds its way, and why map drift is what actually breaks deployments.
Are service robots safe around people?
What safety means for a robot sharing a floor with guests, children and luggage — stopping behaviour, speed, handovers, and the venue's own duties.
Take it further
If a question here applies to a venue you actually run, the specifics matter more than the general case.