SINGAPORE - Companies looking to give their premises a good scrub may want to consider renting cleaning robots.

Singapore firm LionsBot International unveiled plans to produce these robots and offer them for rental at an event to launch the company on Wednesday (Oct 31).

The company's co-founder Dylan Ng said production is expected to begin next year, with 100 robots to be deployed in Singapore from April 2019 and 200 worldwide by end-2019.

The first 100 will be rented by local cleaning contractors Chye Thiam Maintenance and Absolute Maintenance Services and might pop up in places including Changi Airport and the Esplanade.

Businesses from countries such as Australia and Japan have also indicated interest in the products, which has cost $1.2 million to develop over the past seven months, said Mr Ng, who founded LionsBot with his wife Michelle Seow and Assistant Professor Mohan Rajesh Elara from the Singapore University of Technology and Design.

It is uncommon to rent and not sell robots, Dr Mohan noted.

"The norm is to sell a (machine) costing $55,000 to $85,000, to a customer," he said. In comparison, LionsBot's LeoBot Scrub may be rented from $1,200 per month, which will cover its maintenance as well.

In recent years, there has been a push for automation in the cleaning industry here, as the Republic grapples with a labour crunch and ageing workforce.

Last year, $10.8 million was pumped into the National Environment Agency's Environmental Robotics Programme to, for a start, develop robots to clean public spaces, and to collect, transport, sort and dispose of waste.

In July this year, property developer JTC, WIS Holdings and Gaussian Robotics unveiled the "Scrub 50" - a fully autonomous cleaning robot that they have jointly developed and are testing.

National Trades Union Congress assistant director-general Yeo Guat Kwang said it was important to explore new technology given the manpower crunch in the cleaning sector but also stressed the need for workers and companies to adapt to changes.

"All companies that are restructuring should put their workers upfront, to let them understand that such technology will not be replacing, but enhancing their jobs. Companies should also assure workers that the fruit of productivity will be shared," he said at the LionsBot event.

Mr Yeo added that government agencies should help enable this shift by encouraging the move towards outcome-based contracts, instead of those that simply stipulate manpower needed, so that more firms have flexibility to take on the automated technologies.

At the event, LionsBot introduced the special features of their robots.

Current robots on the market, Dr Mohan told The Straits Times, tend to be large and are unable to work in teams. They typically measure about 1.4m, unlike LionsBot's machines, which are about half this length and thus able to enter doors in offices.

While cleaning robots generally have to be individually "taught" the layouts of premises before they start cleaning, which is time-consuming when multiple robots are deployed, Dr Mohan said LionsBot's machines need to do this only once - as they can share their maps across different robot models.

The machines can also communicate while carrying out tasks, to avoid bumping into each other and maximise efficiency in cleaning, said Dr Mohan.

"Typically, there are no such multi-robot systems on the market," Dr Mohan added.

Mr Ng, who is also owner of cleaning equipment firm SuperSteam, added that LionsBot's machines can vacuum and sweep on top of scrubbing floors.

He envisions future product lines that can clean windows and toilets as well.