Laundry
Handling, folding, identification and sorting, transport, and delivery steps across the laundry workflow.
For care providers
More care capacity. Less routine work.
Ontaru is building humanoid robotics for repetitive physical workflows in senior care — starting with laundry.
Starting with a concrete workflowThen expanding across the facility
Designed forReal care environments
Operating modelHuman oversight
Initial focusRepetitive physical work
Development approachBuilt with operators
Why this matters
Robots should absorb routine physical work, not replace the human relationship at the center of care.
Built around operations, not around a demo.
A useful care robot has to fit into staffing patterns, shared spaces, resident routines, safety constraints, and the economics of day-to-day operations. We start by understanding that operating system first.
What our robots will do
One platform, a growing set of facility workflows.
Capabilities are separated by maturity so future functions are never presented as current deployment features.
Transport & retrieval
Move supplies, linens, and everyday items through repeated routes and handoff points.
Telepresence
Use the robot as a physical presence for remote family interaction and supervised facility use.
Bedside & daily support
Progressively support more tasks as manipulation, permissions, and safety systems mature.
Starting with laundry
A full workflow, not one isolated motion.
Laundry is repetitive, physical, and operationally measurable. It is a useful starting point because success depends on more than folding: the robot must understand the workflow from one handoff to the next.
01Collect
Receive or pick up laundry at defined workflow points.
02Handle & fold
Manipulate deformable items at realistic speed and with recoverable failure modes.
03Identify & sort
Maintain item identity and route clean laundry to the correct destination.
04Transport
Move through the facility while respecting people, shared spaces, and operating rules.
05Deliver
Complete the handoff and record workflow state for staff visibility.
Safety & human oversight
Humans stay in control.
Defined operating boundaries
Tasks, spaces, permissions, and prohibited actions are agreed before deployment.
Human intervention
Exceptions can be escalated rather than forcing the robot to improvise beyond its confidence.
Privacy by workflow
Sensing and data use are designed around the minimum needed for each operating task.
Pilot process
Start with one workflow. Measure what changes.
A pilot should be lightweight for the facility and specific enough to produce an operational decision.
01Facility visit
Observe the real workflow, space, staffing, and exceptions.
02Workflow design
Choose the task boundary, operating hours, and success criteria.
03Pilot
Run the robot in the actual operating environment with human oversight.
04Measure
Track labor impact, intervention rate, completion, and workflow fit.
05Scale
Expand only where the operational case is repeatable.
FAQ
Common questions.
Is Ontaru selling a fully autonomous humanoid today?
No. We present current, in-development, and future capabilities separately. Our approach is to deploy bounded workflows with human oversight and increase autonomy as reliability is proven.
Do we need to redesign the facility?
The intent is to fit existing operations wherever possible. A pilot begins with a site and workflow review so physical constraints are understood before deployment.
How do you think about safety around residents and staff?
Operating boundaries, facility permissions, supervised rollout, intervention paths, and task-specific sensing are treated as part of the product rather than an afterthought.
What makes a good first pilot?
A repeated workflow with measurable labor, a clear start and end state, manageable environmental variation, and an operator willing to review the workflow with us.
Explore a pilot
See whether one workflow is worth automating.
We work with care operators in the U.S. and Japan to identify tasks where Physical AI can create measurable capacity without adding unnecessary operational burden.