Senses your step.
Adjusts mid-motion.
Shares the aisle.

Closer builds floor robots that read the people around them and adjust their path in real time, so retail and logistics teams add robotic coverage in live aisles without fencing off the floor.

A service robot sharing a warehouse aisle beside a human worker, no cage barriers
30%
of usable floor area lost to cage exclusion zones in a standard 12-aisle logistics facility
$180K
average installed cost to cage-off a single robot operating aisle, including floor modification
14 wks
average reconfiguration window to relocate a caged robot zone when your floor layout changes

The cage is the problem,
not the solution.

Fenced robot zones were designed for fixed industrial arms, not mobile service robots that need to move through live aisles. Every cage you install freezes a portion of your floor and separates your workforce from the robot. Closer is built from the ground up around proximity awareness: the robot reads its human neighbors continuously and adjusts in real time, no exclusion zone required.

Three sensing layers. One smooth response.

The robot doesn't stop and wait. It reads the space around it at multiple depths and adjusts trajectory continuously, so the aisle stays in motion.

01

Ultrasonic proximity ring

Eight ultrasonic sensors form a 360-degree proximity ring detecting moving bodies at 0.15m to 3m range. Updates at 50Hz. First line of spatial awareness.

02

Depth camera zone

A forward-facing depth camera builds a real-time occupancy grid of the aisle ahead, identifying foot and leg positions at 30fps. Resolves precise approach vectors.

03

Floor-contact force feedback

Pressure sensors in the wheel base detect unexpected contact forces from foot contact or wheel-brush, triggering an immediate deceleration within 40ms.

04

Motion adjustment output

A lightweight onboard planner fuses all three inputs and issues smooth velocity and heading corrections every 20ms, keeping the robot on task while yielding appropriately.

What beta operators are saying

82ms
avg. obstacle
response time
in pilot trials
"

We had written off two aisles in our Kobe facility as robot-incompatible because of foot traffic density. After three weeks with Closer, both aisles are running continuous robot coverage. The response to our pickers is noticeably smooth, not abrupt.

Kenji Watanabe Operations Manager, Kinugawa Logistics Center (beta participant)
"

The floor team stopped noticing the robot by week two. That is exactly what we needed before we could talk to our safety officer about wider deployment. No special training, no revised SOPs for how to walk near it.

Yuki Mori Floor Supervisor, Hakata Distribution Co. (beta participant)

Built by researchers who worked in the aisles first

Fukuoka-based team with a background in human-robot interaction research and logistics hardware.

Shota Higuchi
Shota Higuchi
CEO & Co-Founder

Human-robot interaction research at Kyushu University. Spent two years studying pedestrian-robot coexistence in mixed-use logistics environments before founding Closer.

Haruki Tanaka
Haruki Tanaka
Hardware Engineer

Sensor integration and chassis design. Background in embedded systems for mobile robotics platforms in Kyushu University's robotics lab.

Angel-backed, Feb 2026. Fukuoka, Japan. Full team on About page.

Join the pilot program

We're accepting a second cohort of beta operators for Q3 2026. Reach out with your facility type and fleet size to start the conversation.

Request Pilot Access