CCTY Bearing will discuss how its technologies can help humanoid robots at the Robotics Summit & Expo. Source: CCTY

To help robot developers make humanoid robots that emulate the mobility and flexibility of human limbs, CCTY designs and manufactures bespoke parts tailored to the unique requirements of each project. At the Robotics Summit & Expo this week, the global motion-control supplier will highlight how its state-of-the-art bearings can enable robots to move articulating joints with lifelike grace.

These critical joints must replicate the natural range of motion found in the human body while remaining lightweight and durable, according to CCTY. The company today said its customized approach overcomes the limitations of conventional, off-the-shelf products.

“The development of humanoid robots has garnered significant attention,” stated Yaman Obaid, robotics engineer at CCTY. “Their seamless motion is enabled by a complex interplay of precision engineering, advanced materials, and cutting-edge technology, with bearings serving as the base that enables these movements.”

CCTY builds bearings to suit

CCTY specializes in custom bearing engineering and development. The company has a 1.8 million sq. ft. (167,000 sq. m) production facility in China and offices in Lake Zurich, Ill.; Schwebheim, Germany; Tokyo; and Gujarat, India.

For the robotics sector, CCTY designs motion-control components and assemblies specific to humanoid and industrial robot applications. They include rod ends, spherical plain bearings, COM bearings, bushings, and roller bearings that enable articulating joints to rotate freely and smoothly.

“At the forefront of innovation, CCTY collaborates closely with our customers to design, develop, and test application-specific humanoid robotic bearing solutions,” said Nik Jerinic, strategic account manager at CCTY. “We’re not like other bearing suppliers. We are problem-solvers who work side-by-side with our clients to create a custom design that meets an application’s precise requirements.”

In addition to custom bearings, CCTY said it develops full assemblies that yield customer benefits such as cost savings, streamlined products, and simplified vendor management. With its ability to manufacture small batches, the company said it is as a trusted engineering partner to businesses in the fast-paced robotics industry.

Learn more at the Robotics Summit & Expo

At Booth 234 in Hall C at the Robotics Summit & Expo on May 1 and 2, CCTY said it will demystify the process of bearing design and assembly for robotic applications. It said its expertise and customer partnerships have resulted in systems that will advance the future of humanoid robots.

During the event, CCTY experts will also discuss key robotics industry trends and themes, including the importance of:

• Seals in robotics applications
• Finding the right balance for minimizing torque and clearance
• Backlash and its impact on humanoid movement

“When speaking with new and potential customers, our engineers often find that they’re able to present or share a new idea or enhancement, for example a new design idea or material selection, that improves upon the customer’s existing idea,” said Jerinic. “This is the type of partner CCTY wants to be for our robotics customers: Someone who helps them raise the bar in this high potential and fast-growing industry.”

Registration is now open for the Robotics Summit & Expo, which will be at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. The summit will also feature keynotes and sessions with industry experts, more than 200 exhibitors, a MassRobotics Engineering Career Fair, and several networking opportunities.

Learn from Agility Robotics, Amazon, Disney, Teradyne and many more.

The post CCTY to showcase bearing solutions at the Robotics Summit & Expo appeared first on The Robot Report.

The new Humanoid Robot Innovation Center is located in Zhejiang, China. | Credit: SUPCON

Over the past few years, the race to develop humanoid robots for commercial use has accelerated. SUPCON Technology Co. this month announced the Zhejiang Humanoid Robot Innovation Center and the debut of its first self-developed humanoid, Navigator α.

Founded in 1993, SUPCON provides control and safety systems, monitoring and optimization software, and measurement hardware and software. The Hangzhou, China-based company went public on the SIX Swiss Exchange in April 2023, raising $565 million, according to Crunchbase.

SUPCON’s product line includes offerings for energy management, supply chain management, industrial safety, and simulation. It also supports security and inspection tasks with wheeled and legged robots that can include an array of onboard sensors.

SUPCON’s current product line includes both a wheeled platform and a quadruped robot. | Credit: SUPCON

SUPCON unveils humanoid robot

The company launched a new humanoid robot, signaling its intentions to compete in the burgeoning humanoid space that is already becoming crowded with systems from many global and regional companies.

The Navigator α is 1.5 m (4.9 ft.) tall and weighs 50 kg (110 lb.). It has lightweight mechanical arms with a dexterous hand and multiple degrees of freedom. This hand features 15 finger joints, six active degrees of freedom, a fingertip force of 10N, a lightweight design of 600 g (1.3 lb.), and a joint speed of 150 degrees per second.

SUPCON said it plans to integrate large-scale AI models to achieve an intelligent human interface. The company claimed that Navigator α has been deployed in several field-proven projects.

The future of humanoid robots will depend on their utilization in specific scenarios and industries, said SUPCON. It said its near-term focus will be on bridging the gap between technological research and industrial demand to continue the progress.

The new Navigator α humanoid robot is the latest innovation from SUPCON. | Credit: SUPCON

New center to foster industry-academia interaction

SUPCON said its new innovation center aims to facilitate partnerships between academic institutions and industries in the area of humanoid robotics, as well as explore the potential uses of these robots in various industrial settings. The center’s primary focus is on intelligent sensing and control technologies, while it also works toward the development of fully operational robots.

The Zhejiang Humanoid Robot Innovation Center will function as a hub for technical research, product development, the nurturing of talent, and industrial growth, said SUPCON. The company said its investment in the center follows its strategic objective of seamlessly integrating artificial intelligence with robotics and supporting the evolution of the humanoid robot sector in China.

Learn from Agility Robotics, Amazon, Disney, Teradyne and many more.

The post SUPCON opens new innovation center and launches Navigator α humanoid robot appeared first on The Robot Report.

Sanctuary’s seventh-generation Phoenix includes both hardware and software improvements. | Source: Sanctuary AI

Sanctuary AI today unveiled the seventh generation of its Phoenix humanoid robot. The Vancouver-based company said its upgraded robot is bringing it closer to the creation of the world’s first “human-like intelligence in general-purpose robots.”

This announcement comes less than 12 months after the company launched its sixth-generation robot, and less than 16 months after it first commercially deployed its fifth-generation humanoid in January 2023.

In this week-long pilot deployment, Phoenix worked at a Mark’s retail store in Langley, British Columbia. In that trial, Phoenix successfully completed 110 retail-related tasks, claimed Sanctuary Cognitive Systems Corp., which was founded in 2018 and does business as Sanctuary AI. 

The company said it made numerous improvements to both the robot’s hardware and its AI control system Carbon.

“It’s incredible to see the progress that has been made in just 11 months,” stated Geordie Rose, co-founder and CEO of Sanctuary AI. “With Generation 7, we have a system that we believe is the most closely analogous to a person of any available.”

“We see this as not only the cornerstone of general-purpose AI robotics but a critical step on the path to artificial general intelligence, and we’re thrilled to be leading the charge on it,” he added. “This all adds up to being able to capture increasing quantities of higher-quality, higher-fidelity human behavioral data, which in turn will expedite the development of foundational AI models and customer deployments.”

This generation of Phoenix excels at human behavioral data capture, giving Carbon access to some of the best training data available. the company asserted. 

Learn from Agility Robotics, Amazon, Disney, Teradyne and many more.

Sanctuary AI obtains IP toward general-purpose robots

In December 2023, Sanctuary AI announced that it had acquired intellectual property (IP), adding to its asset portfolio of touch and grasping technologies. At the time, the company said it expected the assets from Giant.AI Inc. and Tangible Research to play a pivotal role in its construction of general-purpose robots.

Sanctuary AI credited these IP assets with expanding its patent portfolio centered around grasping technology. These include visual servoing, real-time simulation of the grasping process, and mapping between visual and haptic data. While it not confirm whether they went into Phoenix, it seems likely.

Phoenix includes several upgrades 

Sanctuary listed the following the upgrades in its latest release:

• Phoenix now has increased uptime, which means that it has more time for training and data capture. 
• The robot also now has increased build and commissioning speed, allowing Sanctuary to bring more units online faster. 
• Sanctuary has reduced Phoenix’s bill of materials, reducing the cost of manufacture. 
• The company has increased range of motion in the wrists, hands, and elbows. It has also increased hand durability. 
• Sanctuary said it further miniaturized hydraulics, resulting in reduced weight, power consumption, and complexity, with increased hardware and software measures that exceed specified safety standards. 
• Phoenix has improved visual acuity and tactile sensing, leading to higher-fidelity data to train the AI control system. 
• The time it takes for new tasks to be automated has gone from weeks to less than 24 hours, marking a major inflection point in task automation speed and autonomous system capability.

Earlier this month, Sanctuary AI announced a strategic partnership with Magna International. Through this expanded partnership, the company plans to equip Magna’s automotive component factories with general-purpose AI robots. It also plans to engage Magna to manufacture the Phoenix robots under contract in the future. 

The post Sanctuary AI’s latest Phoenix humanoid can learn tasks in 24 hours appeared first on The Robot Report.

In this episode, we talk to Matt Casella from Richtech Robotics about the Adam bartending robot, and then to Chris Padwick from John Deere about creating vision models for spraying weeds in the field.

Both interviews occurred during NVIDIA’s GTC event last month, and both companies use NVIDIA technology in their AI-powered robots.

Show timeline

• 23:54: Interview with Matt Casella, President of Richtech Robotics
• 44:14: Interview with Chris Padwick, director of machine vision learning, from John Deere Autonomous Solutions

News from this week

Boston Dynamics unveils electric Atlas humanoid robot

On Tuesday, Boston Dynamics retired the previous version of Atlas after about 15 years of development. It paved the way for numerous other humanoid robots.

As you have probably seen on YouTube, Atlas was surprisingly agile, given its hydraulics and bulk. In fact, Atlas won an RBR50 award for its demonstration of running and delivering tools at a simulated construction site at the company’s headquarters in Waltham, Mass.

At the same time, the company has not been shy about showing the many falls and missteps on the way to increasingly robust locomotion and dexterous manipulation.

On Wednesday, Boston Dynamics announced a new, all-electric version intended for eventual commercial use. 

Mentee Robotics decloaks with its own AI-powered humanoid

Perhaps overshadowed by Boston Dynamics’ announcement the same day, Mentee Robotics came out of stealth and unveiled its first bipedal humanoid robot prototype. A team with experience in machine, computer vision, and other fields founded the Herzliya, Israel-based company in 2022.

Mentee Robotics said its AI-powered robot will understand natural-language commands and be based on a simulation-to-reality model. The company acknowledged that more work is to be done and said it is aiming for the household and warehouse markets. Like Boston Dynamics, it is aiming to have more robots to show in 2025.

Locus Robotics surpasses 3B picks mere months after last milestone

Locus Robotics Corp. this week said it has surpassed 3 billion total picks across its global customer deployments. The Wilmington, Mass.-based company reached this milestone just 33 weeks after it recorded its 2 billionth pick.

Locus claimed that the achievement underscores its continued rapid growth and solidifies its position as a leader in AI-powered robots for the warehouse.

California committee passes AV ban

On Wednesday, the California Senate Committee on Local Government passed legislation allowing local municipalities to ban and tax autonomous vehicle (AV) deployment.

Last year was one of California’s deadliest for roadway fatalities, largely because of human behaviors including distracted driving, drunk driving, and speeding. The legislation by Sen. Dave Cortese takes control away from state-level agencies like the DMV and California Public Utilities Commission, which have approved the rollout of AVs.

The post From the barn to the bar: AI powered robots appeared first on The Robot Report.

Chinese and U.S. companies led March 2024 robotics investments. Credit: Eacon Mining, Dan Kara

Thirty-seven robotics firms received funding in March 2024, pulling in a total monthly investment of $642 million. March’s investment figure was significantly less than February’s mark of approximately $2 billion, but it was in keeping with other monthly investments in 2023 and early 2024 (see Figure 1, below).

California companies secure investment

As described in Table 1 below, the two largest robotics investments in March were secured by software suppliers. Applied Intuition, a provider of software infrastructure to deploy autonomous vehicles at scale, received a $250 million Series E round, while Physical Intelligence, a developer of foundation models and other software for robots and actuated devices, attracted $70 million in a seed round. Both firms are located in California.

Other California firms receiving substantial rounds included Bear Robotics, a manufacturer of self-driving indoor robots that raised a $60 million Series C round, and unmanned aerial system (UAS) developer Firestorm, whose seed funding was $20 million. For a PDF version of Table 1, click here.

March 2024 robotics investments

Drones get fuel for takeoff in March 2024

Providers of drones, drone technologies, and drone services also attracted substantial individual investments in March 2024. Examples included Firestorm and Gather AI, a developer of inventory monitoring drones whose Series A was $17 million.

In addition, drone services provider Preneu obtained $11 million in Series B funding, and DRONAMICS, a developer of drone technology for cargo transportation and logistics operations, got a grant worth $10.8 million.

Companies in U.S. and China received the majority of the March 2024 funding, at $451 million and $100 million, respectively (see Figure 2, below).

Companies based in Japan and the U.K. were also well represented among the March 2024 investment totals. Four companies in Japan secured a total of $34.7 million, while an equal number of firms in the U.K. attracted $13.5 million in funding.

Nearly 40% of March’s robotics investments came from a single Series E round — that of Applied Intuition. The remaining funding classes were all represented in March 2024 (Figure 3, below).

Editor’s notes

What defines robotics investments? The answer to this simple question is central in any attempt to quantify them with some degree of rigor. To make investment analyses consistent, repeatable, and valuable, it is critical to wring out as much subjectivity as possible during the evaluation process. This begins with a definition of terms and a description of assumptions.

Investors and investing

Investment should come from venture capital firms, corporate investment groups, angel investors, and other sources. Friends-and-family investments, government/non-governmental agency grants, and crowd-sourced funding are excluded.

Robotics and intelligent systems companies

Robotics companies must generate or expect to generate revenue from the production of robotics products (that sense, analyze, and act in the physical world), hardware or software subsystems and enabling technologies for robots, or services supporting robotics devices. For this analysis, autonomous vehicles (including technologies that support autonomous driving) and drones are considered robots, while 3D printers, CNC systems, and various types of “hard” automation are not.

Companies that are “robotic” in name only, or use the term “robot” to describe products and services that do not enable or support devices acting in the physical world, are excluded. For example, this includes “software robots” and robotic process automation. Many firms have multiple locations in different countries. Company locations given in the analysis are based on the publicly listed headquarters in legal documents, press releases, etc.

Verification

Funding information is collected from several public and private sources. These include press releases from corporations and investment groups, corporate briefings, market research firms, and association and industry publications. In addition, information comes from sessions at conferences and seminars, as well as during private interviews with industry representatives, investors, and others. Unverifiable investments are excluded and estimates are made where investment amounts are not provided or are unclear.

Learn from Agility Robotics, Amazon, Disney, Teradyne and many more.

The post March 2024 robotics investments total $642M appeared first on The Robot Report.

Goodbye to the hydraulic version of Atlas and hello to the electric model designed for commercialization. That’s the message from Boston Dynamics Inc., which yesterday retired the older version of its humanoid robot after 15 years of development and today showed a preview of its successor.

“The next generation of the Atlas program builds on decades of research and furthers our commitment to delivering the most capable, useful mobile robots solving the toughest challenges in the industry today: with Spot, with Stretch, and now with Atlas,” said the company in a blog post. Spot is a quadruped used in facilities inspection and other tasks, and Stretch is designed to unload trucks.

Boston Dynamics began with humanoids by sawing one of its pneumatically powered quadrupeds in half back in 2009. By 2016, the Waltham, Mass.-based company showed that its robot could walk, open a door, and maintain its balance while being shoved by a person holding a hockey stick, all without a tether.

Roboticists continued to improve Atlas, giving it a smaller form factor and more sensors, training its artificial intelligence, and enabling it to do increasingly impressive feats. They ranged from parkour and dancing to taking tools through a mock construction site.

In fact, it was that demonstration of Atlas manipulating a plank, picking up a bag of tools, and taking it to a worker that earned Boston Dynamics an RBR50 Robotics Innovation Award. The company will be exhibiting at the RBR50 Showcase at the Robotics Summit & Expo on May 1 and 2.

Learn from Agility Robotics, Amazon, Disney, Teradyne and many more.

Boston Dynamics evolves with the times

As capable as the YouTube darling was, the older version of Atlas still had limitations, both in range of motion and in terms of size and power usage. Boston Dynamics noted that it designed its legged robots to operate in unstructured environments, and it acknowledged that Atlas was initially a research and development project rather than a commercial product.

In the meantime, the company itself changed owners, from Google in 2013 to SoftBank in 2017 and most recently to Hyundai in 2020. Along with those changes came an increasing focus on robots such as Spot and Stretch serving industrial needs. To continue pure research, Hyundai founded the Boston Dynamics AI Institute in 2022.

“The AI Institute recently launched a new version of Spot with an API [application programming interface] designed for researchers,” said Robert Playter, CEO of Boston Dynamics. “We’re talking about how to jointly solve some big challenges — the diversity of manipulation tasks we need to do with this robot [Atlas] is huge, and AI is essential to enabling that generality.”

Playter told The Robot Report that Boston Dynamics needs results within two to three years, while the AI Institute has more of a five-year timeframe.

Robot lessons apply to fleets, new Atlas

“It takes a solid year from a clean sheet to a new robot,” said Playter. “We wanted to know that we could solve essential dexterous manipulation problems before releasing the product.”

Boston Dynamics learned numerous lessons from commercializing Spot and Stretch, he said. It has improved control policies, upgraded actuation, and minimized joint complexity. The new Atlas has three-fingered grippers.

The Orbit fleet management software, which initially applies to indoor deployments of Spot, could also help supervise Stretch and Atlas.

Atlas gets ready for mobile manipulation in industrial settings. Source: Boston Dynamics

“Everything we understood, from the time of launching Spot as a prototype to it being a reliable product deployed in fleets, is going into the new Atlas,” Playter said. “We’re confident AI and Orbit will help enhance behaviors. For instance, by minimizing slipping on surfaces at Anheuser-Busch, we proved that we can develop algorithms and make it reliable.”

“Now, 1,500 robots in our fleet have them running,” he added. “It’s essential for customers like Purina to monitor and manage fleets as a vehicle for collecting data. As we develop and download new capabilities, Orbit becomes a hub for an ecosystem of different robots.”

Safety and autonomy are basic building blocks

Boston Dynamics has considered safe collaboration in its development of the new Atlas. ASTM International is developing safety standards for legged robots.

“We recognized early on that Atlas is going to work in spaces that have people in them,” said Playter. “This sets the bar much higher than lidar with AMRs [autonomous mobile robots].”

“We started thinking about functionally safe 3D vision,” he recalled. “We started with Stretch inside a container, but ultimately, we want it going everywhere in a warehouse. Advanced, functionally safe, remote vision and onboard systems are essential to solving safety.”

While Spot and Atlas are often teleoperated, Playter said this is a necessary step toward greater levels of autonomy.

“Making the robots knowledgeable about different types of objects and how to grasp them, teleoperation is just a tool for providing examples and data to the robot,” he explained. “It’s not a useful way of building intuition, but it’s easier if you can operate robots at a higher and higher level. Like you don’t need to tell Spot where to plant its feet, you don’t want to tell Atlas where to grasp.”

In the new video below, the previous version of Atlas handles automotive parts and real products weighing up to 25 lb. (11.3 kg).

Atlas ready for rivals in the humanoid race

Over the past two years, the number of humanoid robots in development has rapidly grown. It now includes Agility Robotics‘ Digit, Tesla’s Optimus, and Figure AI‘s Figure 01. In the two past weeks alone, Rainbow Robotics, Sanctuary AI, and Mentee Robotics have all made announcements.

Investment has also been flowing to humanoid companies, with 1X Technologies raising $100 million in January, Figure AI raising $675 million in February, and Accenture investing in Sanctuary AI in March.

Humanoid robots have advanced in parallel with generative AI, and Playter said he welcomes the competition.

“There were three seminal events: Boston Dynamics got acquired for $1 billion, interest in Tesla’s robot validated what we’ve done for a long time, and the emergence of new AI holds the promise of generalization of tasks,” he said. “They’ve inspired lots of new players, but having new tech isn’t all you need to have a commercial product. You need to focus on a use case, build a reliable machine, and manufacture it in a way to build a business. We want to avoid a ‘humanoid winter,’ so rollouts have to be real.”

Playter added that practical design and proper implementation of AI will help differentiate robots rather than focusing on making them more human-like. The new version of Atlas demonstrated that point in how it stood up in the video at the top of this article.

“It’s not talking to a robot that moves the needle, but whether you can build a robot that eventually does 500 tasks,” he said. “Anthropomorphism blows things out of perspective. We did not want a human-shaped head for Atlas. We want people to remember it’s a machine and that it can move in ways humans can’t.”

The financial stability of the businesses involved will also be relevant for commercial success, said Playter. 

“It takes sustained investment; these are expensive products to launch,” he noted. “Having products already out helps build momentum.”

Atlas is humanoid — to a point. Source: Boston Dynamics

When will we see the new robot in the wild?

Boston Dynamics will begin testing the all-electric version of Atlas with parent company Hyundai and select partners next year, said Playter.

“We’re beginning in their factory,” he told The Robot Report. “In addition to the target application of a lot of parts movement — a special kind of logistics in automotive production — I think that will evolve as the dexterity of the robots improves over time.”

“We see robots in the workplace as an evolution, a continuum from Spot to Atlas,” asserted Playter. “Each product in the series informs the launch of the next.”

“Industries will have to figure out how to adapt and incorporate humanoids into their facilities,” he said. “We’ll actually see robots in the wild in factories beginning next year. We want a diversity of tasks.”

The post Boston Dynamics debuts electric version of Atlas humanoid robot appeared first on The Robot Report.

Mentee Robotics co-founders include Lior Wolf, CEO (left); Amnon Shashua, chairman (middle); Shai Shalev-Shwartz, chief scientist (right). | Credit: Mentee Robotics

Mentee Robotics came out of stealth today and unveiled its first bipedal humanoid robot prototype. An experienced team founded the Herzliya, Israel company in 2022. It includes Prof. Amnon Shashua, the chairman of Mentee Robotics, an expert in AI, computer vision, natural language processing and other related fields.

The company‘s founders also include Prof. Lior Wolf, the CEO of Mentee Robotics and formerly a research scientist and director at Facebook AI Research, and Prof. Shai Shalev-Shwartz, a computer scientist and machine learning researcher. 

Prof. Shashua is also the founder and current CEO of Mobileye, a public company that is developing autonomous-driving and driver-assist technologies and harnessing advancements in computer vision, machine learning, mapping, and data analysis.

The company joins a growing list of robotics developers that have launched competing humanoids in the past year, including Figure AI, Sanctuary AI, Apptronik, Tesla, 1X, and others.

The Menteebot humanoid can take verbal instructions and then execute a mission. | Credit: Mentee Robotics

Leveraging Sim2Real training data

Mentee Robotics is developing a humanoid robot that it said will be capable of understanding natural-language commands by using artificial intelligence. The growth and evolution of large language models (LLM) over the past year is the foundation for this capability.

The prototype of Menteebot that was unveiled today incorporates AI at every level of its operations. The motion of the robot is based on a new machine-learning method called simulation to reality (Sim2Real). In this method, reinforcement learning happens on a virtual version of the robot, which means that it can use as much data as it needs to learn and then respond to the real world with very little data. 

NeRF-based methods, which are the newest neural network-based technologies for representing 3D scenes, map the world on the fly. The semantic knowledge is stored in these cognitive maps, which the computer can query to find things and places.

Mentee’s robot can then figure out where it is on the 3D map and then automatically plan dynamic paths to avoid obstacles.

Learn from Agility Robotics, Amazon, Disney, Teradyne and many more.

Mentee Robotics has more work to do

The prototype that was unveiled today demonstrated an end-to-end cycle from complex task completion, including navigation, locomotion, scene understanding, object detection and localization, grasping, and natural language understanding.

However, Mentee Robotics noted that this is not the final version that is ready for deployment.

The company also told The Robot Report that is it targets two primary market initially with the Mentee humanoid. One of these markets is household, with a domestic assistant adept at maneuvering within households, capable of executing a range of tasks including table setting, table cleanup, laundry handling, and the ability to learn new tasks on the fly through verbal instructions and visual imitation. The second industrial market is in the warehouse, with a warehouse automation robot designed to efficiently locate, retrieve, and transport items, and a capacity to handle loads weighing up to 25 kg (55 lbs).

The robot includes custom-engineered motors to deliver torque, design life, and efficiency. | Credit: Mentee Robotics

Production units to come in 2025

Mentee Robotics said it is planning to release a production-ready prototype by Q1 2025. The system uses only vision-based cameras for sensing the world around it.

In addition, the company’s engineering team developed proprietary electric motors to support the robot’s dexterity requirements.

“We are on the cusp of a convergence of computer vision, natural language understanding, strong and detailed simulators, and methodologies on and for transferring from simulation to the real world,” said Prof. Amnon Shashua, chairman of Mentee Robotics. “At Mentee Robotics, we see this convergence as the starting point for designing the future general-purpose bipedal robot that can move everywhere — as a human — with the brains to perform household tasks and learn through imitation tasks it was not previously trained for.”

The post Mentee Robotics de-cloaks to launch new AI-driven humanoid robot appeared first on The Robot Report.

maxon says it can provide all key components of a tightly integrated robotics drive from a single source. | Source: maxon

maxon group has launched its new drive systems portfolio specifically designed for modern robotics applications. The company said it believes that developers and startups should focus on their core value drivers and challenges and leave it to maxon to take care of key complexities typically associated with robotic actuators, including high performance, reliability, supply chains, integration, and testing. 

Modern robots require highly scalable manufacturing of complex and high-performance actuators, asserted maxon. Therefore, robustness and reliability are key, especially for systems operate in unstructured environments, the company added. maxon said this is one of its strengths because it designs and tests all of its robotics products to the highest quality standards. 

The Sachsein, Switzerland-based company’s new portfolio contains 15 different actuators divided into two families: High Efficiency Joints and High Precision Joints. It said each provides unique benefits to address a broad range of industrial applications. 

maxon’s High Efficiency Joint line

The High Efficiency Joints integrate torque-dense electric motors from maxon’s EC frameless DT motor lineup, planetary gears, electronics, sensing, and support structures into a fully integrated IP67 ingress-protected actuator unit. 

maxon said this line of joints can achieve up to 86% efficiencies and can output high continuous power, thanks to their integrated cooling capabilities. The joint line’s control system can be configured flexibly and support independent control of the joint. 

Target applications are mobile robots in unstructured environments, explained maxon. This includes humanoids, quadrupeds, exoskeletons, or mobile manipulators. The company said its systems enable roboticists to quickly create a high-performing robot that follows modern design principles such as those dictated by deep reinforcement learning and related simulation approaches. 

Thje new High-Efficiency Joint HEJ 90-48-140 provides 140 Nm and 13 rad/s at the joint, is IP67 rated, and contains electronics and sensors for modern robotics control systems. | Source: maxon

maxon targets systems integrators with High Precision Joints

The High Precision Joints are more configurable systems based on strain-wave gearboxes and high-resolution output encoders, said maxon. While these actuators also feature torque-dense electric motors, the company said it’s targeting systems integrators. It said hopes to enable them to quickly create robotics systems like collaborative or industrial manipulators or surgical robots. 

maxon’s High Precision Joints allow the creation of well-optimized robots. When combined with its customer-facing robotics design simulation, optimization, and consulting services, the company said it can ensure that customers obtain the right systems for their applications. 

maxon is a fully vertically integrated provider of actuation systems ranging from brushed to brushless motors, sensors, gears, and electronics. The company said this enables it to provide robotics actuators that are high-performing, low-cost, and adaptive to customer requirements.

maxon’s High Precision Joints feature strain-wave gearboxes with no backlash and high-resolution output encoders. | Source: maxon

See maxon at webinar and Robotics Summit & Expo

Carsten Horn, applications engineering manager at maxon, and Dario Renggli, business development engineer at maxon, will participate in a free webinar at noon EDT on Wednesday, April 17, on “Motion Control for Healthcare Robotics Applications.”

In addition, Tobias Wellerdieck, head of robotic drive systems at maxon, will be speaking at the Robotics Summit & Expo, which will be on May 1 and 2 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. His talk, “Holistic Drive System Optimization for Robotics,” will discuss the challenges that come with developing robotic systems for new, complex markets. 

maxon will also be exhibiting on the Robotics Summit & Expo show floor at Booth 327. The company is also a Gold Sponsor of the event. Registration is now open.

Learn from Agility Robotics, Amazon, Disney, Teradyne and many more.

The post maxon launches drive systems portfolio designed for robotics appeared first on The Robot Report.

This week, we announced the honorees for the 2024 RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards. On the podcast episode this week, the entire The Robot Report editorial staff brings its opinions, observations, and highlights of the 2024 awards program. Host Steve Crowe discusses the awards with editors Mike Oitzman, Eugene Demaitre, and Brianna Wessling.

Listen as the editors discusses some of their favorite robotics companies and products from this cohort of honorees. You’ll learn what impressed the editors about several of the winners and what’s notable in this year’s program.

Digit named Robot of the Year

2023 was the year of humanoids, and Agility Robotics has taken an early lead with commercial trials. The company’s Digit humanoid stole the show at ProMAT, where it demonstrated its ability to pick up totes from a shelf, walk over to a conveyor, and place the totes onto the conveyor.

Autopicker wins Application of the Year

Cincinnati-based Brightpick, which spun out of Photoneo, was named the inaugural Application of the Year winner. In 2023, Brightpick unveiled Autopicker, which it said is the first commercially available AMR that can pick and consolidate orders directly in warehouse aisles.

Electric Sheep is Startup of the Year

San Francisco-based Electric Sheep’s unique business model allows it to bring in revenue as it takes its time deploying its technology. This business model led to it being named Startup of the Year.

Note that the rules for the RBR50 state that innovations have to be announced within the calendar year. Keep that in mind as your organization plans its product roadmap, and be sure to submit your nomination the next iteration of the RBR50 later this year.

Come celebrate at the 2024 RBR50 Gala

We introduced three new categories in 2024 – Robot of the Year, Application of the Year, and Startup of the Year – and will be holding the inaugural RBR50 Gala on May 1 from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. at the end of Day 1 of the Robotics Summit & Expo.

The gala offers a chance to connect with the world’s leading robotics innovators. It’s also an evening of celebration to honor leading roboticists and their impressive achievements.

Tickets to the gala are available through Wednesday, April 17.

Learn from Agility Robotics, Amazon, Disney, Teradyne and many more.

The post Inside the 2024 RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards appeared first on The Robot Report.

The Phoenix humanoid robot is being developed to enable embodied AI and support general-purpose applications. | Credit: Sanctuary AI

Humanoid robot developer Sanctuary Cognitive Systems Corp., or Sanctuary AI, is entering a new strategic partnership with automotive components supplier Magna International Inc. Through this expanded partnership, Sanctuary plans to equip Magna’s manufacturing facilities with general-purpose AI robots.

The Vancouver-based company also plans to engage Magna to manufacture the Sanctuary Phoenix robots under contract in the future. Aurora, Ontario-based Magna has been an investor in Sanctuary AI since 2021, and it acquired autonomous vehicle startup Optimus Ride in 2022.

Yesterday’s announcement with Magna follows Accenture’s recent investment in Sanctuary for an undisclosed amount.

Phoenix includes human-like design, AI

“We founded Sanctuary AI with the goal to become the first organization in the world to create human-like AI,” stated Geordie Rose, co-founder and CEO of Sanctuary AI. “World-changing goals like these require world-changing partners.”

“Magna’s position as a world leader in the use of robots today makes this partnership an essential advancement for our mission,” he added. “We’re privileged to be working with Magna, and believe they will be a key element in the successful global deployment of our machines.”

Sanctuary Phoenix includes human-like dexterous hands and arms. Since it launched the robot in May 2023, the company has invested heavily in the development of manipulation capabilities, perception features, and artificial intelligence models that control the humanoid robot.

In December 2023, Sanctuary secured patents for numerous technologies developed both internally and through strategic acquisitions from external sources. The company acquired the latest assets from Giant.AI Inc. and Tangible Research.

Sanctuary is iterating on humanoid design by perfecting hand-eye coordination and AI model training. | Credit: Sanctuary AI

Sanctuary AI builds relationship with Magna

“The intent of the relationship [with Magna International] has always been threefold,” Rose told The Robot Report. “One is that they were an investor.”

“Another would be they would participate in manufacturing the robots at some point,” he said. “And the third would be there could be a consumer of the robots as a customer. So all of those three things are obviously related to each other. All of them are good for both parties.”

“So we’ve continued to impress [Magna] with our velocity and acceleration in terms of developing the technology from something that was a twinkle in our eyes six years ago to something that can actually perform real-world work tasks,” Rose noted.

The workflow opportunities for an agile humanoid at Magna are endless, according to Rose. “The key to getting a good fit in the short term is understanding how to overlap that type of analysis with the type of capability that you can deliver,” he said. “So this is a difficult thing for companies that are early stage, including us, because of the ‘drinking your own Kool-Aid’ phenomenon.”

“A lot of companies will release a whole bunch of hype both to their customers, their investors, and internally in themselves — they start to believe that they can do things they can’t, and they make bad decisions about how they position their technology,” Rose continued. “So we have to be clear-eyed about what’s actually possible with our [robot] and then be very diligent in trying to understand the details of how the workflow actually works in practice, and then overlap the two.”

“When you do that with this type of technology, what you find is that the first use cases all fall into the following categories: There is an aspect of mobility, that’s best treated with wheels, where the robot has to move from place to place within an environment. And then there’s the aspect of manipulation,” he explained.

Magna also said its team is excited about the possibilities for intelligent mobile manipulation. It said it expects to automate various tasks and to improve the quality and efficiency of its manufacturing and logistics processes.

“Magna is excited to partner with Sanctuary AI in our shared mission to advance the future of manufacturing,” said Todd Deaville, vice president of advanced manufacturing innovation at Magna. “By integrating general-purpose AI robots into our manufacturing facilities for specific tasks, we can enhance our capabilities to deliver high-quality products to our customers.”

Learn from Agility Robotics, Amazon, Disney, Teradyne and many more.

A key success factor for robotics startups

As Sanctuary AI begins the process of commercializing Phoenix, it plans to contract with Magna for the production of part or all of the robot going forward. Sanctuary asserted that finding the right manufacturing partner to build its robots at high volumes is best outsourced and that manufacturing should be non-core for any robotics startup.

Many robotics startups often fail when they attempt to manufacture their systems in-house, observed Rose. He said he has sought to find the right production partner since the inception of the company.

Sanctuary employs embodied AI and foundation models

Embodied AI is core to the future of Sanctuary AI, which said it is spending all of its intellectual energy on engineering and training the smartest models for these robots. Rose said he is amazed at the evolution of embodied AI over the past decade.

The real race, according to Rose, is to find a way to gather the immense amount of data needed and put the robot into the necessary training situations for the AI models to learn and grow in confidence.

This is where the enhanced relationship with Magna comes in. The product roadmap for the Sanctuary over the next year is to deploy all of the production runs of Phoenix robots into real-world manufacturing environments at Magna facilities. In simple terms, Phoenix will learn by executing tasks every day and gathering training data.

“In the run that we’re about to begin with Magna, we’ll be able to collect data in a commercial environment of the sort that will train a production robot,” Rose said. “So the progression of this, from our perspective, is the ability to collect training data to generate autonomous behaviors. The systems that we’re building this year are going to be consumed in data collection.”

In 2025, Sanctuary said it will iterate on a version of the robot for broader use and sale. Similar to the model used at Rose’s prior company, Kindred, there will be a human in the loop to help robots resolve edge cases while minimizing any impact on day-to-day operations.

Rose summed up the current state of development: “We can go from data collection to a trained policy in less than 24 hours now, where the train policy does as well or better than the people who are doing the task for simple tasks. So that is an amazing thing that I was not expecting — these new transformer-based models are spectacularly good at moving robots, way better than I thought they would be.”

“I think it’s an echo of my surprise that how well large language models can generate text; who would have thought that predicting the next token would allow you to be a coherent understander of the world?” he said. “But it seems like that’s the way they work. And in the space of moving robots, if you’ve got enough data, what can’t you do? You can just talk to the robot and say, ‘Do this thing,’ and it will just do it. It’s magical.”

The post Sanctuary AI enters strategic relationship with Magna to build embodied AI robots appeared first on The Robot Report.

2023 was the year that humanoid robots took big strides onto the public stage, and Agility Robotics pulled ahead in that race with Digit, which is our first-ever RBR50 Robot of the Year.

At ProMAT last year, Digit stole the show by demonstrating its ability to pick up totes from a shelf, walk over to a conveyor, and place the totes onto the conveyor. At the time, Corvallis, Ore.-based Agility Robotics said the demo was based on a real customer use case.

Later in 2023, the company announced pilots with two major customers: Amazon and GXO Logistics, which claims to be the world’s largest pure-play contract logistics provider. Digit is 5 ft., 9 in (175cm) tall, weighs 143 lb. (64.8 kg), and can carry up to 35 lb. (18 kg).

In October, Amazon and Agility said the humanoid robot was being tested at Amazon’s robotics research and development facility outside of Seattle. The initial use of Digit is to help employees with tote recycling, a highly repetitive process of picking up and moving empty totes once inventory has been completely picked out of them.

In December 2023, GXO announced that Digit is being tested for logistics tasks at a SPANX facility in Georgia. Digit is moving totes filled with products off of autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) and onto a conveyor. Agility said at the time that Digit will communicate with the AMR fleet manager in the future.

Adrian Stoch, chief automation officer at GXO, said Digit’s potential flexibility gives it a nod over other types of robots, including AMRs with top modules.

“The real application here is end-to-end product flow throughout the warehouse,” he said. “Until now, solutions have been mostly discrete applications: goods-to-person, sorters, wearable tech. Solving discrete problems in one part of the puzzle.”

For companies operating fulfillment centers with a wide product mix or fluctuating demand, the potential flexibility of humanoids could help fill the ongoing labor crisis.

Agility Robotics recently launched Agility Arc, a cloud platform for managing operations, and it partnered with warehouse management systems (WMS) provider Manhattan Associates.

We’ve never seen a humanoid perform real tasks in a commercial setting, until now. Humanoids have long been relegated to research labs, but the goalposts began to seismically shift in 2023.

Learn from Agility Robotics, Amazon, Disney, Teradyne and many more.

See Agility at the Robotics Summit

Jonathan Hurst, co-founder and chief robot officer at Agility Robotics, will be keynoting the Robotics Summit & Expo, which takes place May 1 and 2 in Boston and is produced by The Robot Report and parent company WTWH Media. His talk, “Humanoid Robots Get to Work,” will explore the technological breakthroughs propelling humanoids like Digit into real-world use cases.

Agility Robotics will also be featured in the show’s RBR50 Showcase. Visit Booth 448 on the show floor to see Digit in action. The showcase will also feature technology from Boston Dynamics, Brightpick, Locus Robotics, and more.

You can also learn more about Agility Robotics and the rest of this year’s RBR50 award winners at the first-ever RBR50 Gala. At 6:00 p.m. EDT after Day 1 of the show, the ticketed reception will allow attendees to network with the people behind this year’s most innovative robots.

Registration is now open for the Robotics Summit & Expo.

The post Agility Robotics’ Digit wins inaugural Robot of the Year award appeared first on The Robot Report.

RB-Y1 mounts a humanoid-type double-arm robot on a wheeled, high-speed mobile base. | Credit: Rainbow Robotics

Rainbow Robotics announced the release of detailed specifications for the new RB-Y1 mobile robot. The company recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Schaeffler Group and the Korea Electronics Technology Institute, or KETI, to co-develop the RB-Y1 and other mobile manipulators in Korea.

What’s in a name: Wheeled humanoid? Bimanual manipulator?

The past year has seen an explosion in the growth of humanoids, where most of the robots are bipedal and walk on two legs. Likewise, there have been many recent releases of mobile manipulators, or autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) with a single arm manipulator on board the vehicle.

The RB-Y1 is a form of wheeled robot base with a humanoid double-arm robot on top. Rainbow Robotics’ robot uses that base to maneuver through its environment and position the arms for manipulation tasks. The company called this configuration a “bimanual manipulator.”

To perform various and complex tasks, both arms on the RB-Y1 are equipped with seven degrees of freedom and consist of a single torso with six axes that can move the body. With this kinematic configuration, it is possible to move more than 50 cm (19.7 in.) vertically, making it possible to perform tasks at various heights.

Learn from Agility Robotics, Amazon, Disney, Teradyne and many more.

Rainbow Robotics provides high-speed cornering

The maximum driving speed for the RB-Y1 is 2,500 mm/s (5.6 mph), and the company is claiming that the robot can accelerate quickly and turn at higher speeds by leaning the body into the turn. To avoid toppling while in motion, the center of gravity can be safely controlled by dynamically changing the height of the body.

The dimensions of the robots are 600 x 690 x 1,400 mm (23.6 x 27.2 x 55.1 in.), and the unit weighs 131 kg (288.8 lb.). The manipulators can each lift 3 kg (6.61 lb.).

At press time, there are not a lot of details about the robot’s ability to function using artificial intelligence, and one early video showed it working via teleoperation. It’s likely that the demonstrations in the video below are with remote operators.

However, Rainbow Robotics clearly has the goal of making its robot fully autonomous in the future, as more research, development, training, and simulation are completed.

“These days, when Generative AI such as ChatGPT and Figure is a hot topic in the robot industry, we have developed a bimanual mobile manipulator in line with the AI era,” stated a company spokesperson. “We hope that the platform will overcome the limitations of existing industrial robots and be used in many industrial sites.”

The post Rainbow Robotics unveils RB-Y1 wheeled, two-armed robot appeared first on The Robot Report.

Agility Arc is a cloud-based platform for managing fleets of humanoids. Source: Agility Robotics

Agility Robotics made a couple of strategic moves this week as it continues to commercialize its Digit humanoid. Let’s start with the good news.

Agility is partnering with Manhattan Associates, a global leader in supply chain and omnichannel commerce. There are a lot of warehouse management systems (WMS) on the market, but as one source told The Robot Report, Manhattan Associates is “the standard bearer when it comes to large 3PL operations.”

Agility is joining the Manhattan Value Partner (MVP) program and the Manhattan Automation Network for warehouse automation providers. Manhattan and Agility will integrate Digit and Agility Arc, the company’s new fleet management software introduced at MODEX 2024, with the Manhattan Active Warehouse Management solution.

WMS integration an important step for Digit

Integrating new tools with existing systems can be challenging for warehouse operators. Ensuring compatibility with the industry-leading WMS is an important first step for Digit.

“Digit is already the world’s only bipedal robot currently delivering useful work for customers, increasing productivity and safety while helping workers with difficult and repetitive tasks in warehouse and manufacturing operations,” stated Peggy Johnson, CEO of Agility Robotics. “We’re thrilled to partner with Manhattan to streamline adoption of Agility’s solutions into existing best practices and bring Digit to more warehouses around the world.”

Manhattan Associates said Agility is the first humanoid to join both the MVP and the Manhattan Automation Network. Manhattan has similar partnerships with Exotec, a provider of automated storage and retrieval systems (ASRS) and Locus Robotics, the leading developer of autonomous mobile robots (AMRs).

“Companies are under enormous pressure to deliver more products faster and more efficiently, while facing massive and growing labor shortages,” said Eric Lamphier, senior director of alliances for Manhattan Associates. “Innovative robotics solutions, like Digit, can help fill those gaps, connecting islands of automation and improving operational efficiency.”

“We’re proud to be the first WMS provider to partner with a humanoid robotics provider,” he added. “Together, Agility and Manhattan are making it easy for customers to integrate cutting-edge technology, like Digit and Agility Arc, into their warehouse workflows.”

Agility Arc is a new cloud-based platform designed to give customers better control and insight into their Digit humanoids. Users can monitor the status and performance of each Digit, create workcells and workflows, and assign new tasks to the robots.

Agility Robotics also now offers a few accessories for the Arc platform, including a charging dock, a control pendant, and a workcell that comes with guarding, e-stops, monitored entrances, and more. Since there are no safety standards yet for humanoids, these robots will need to be caged off as they initially make their way into the world.

Agility Robotics lays off staff

Now for the bad news. Agility laid off an unspecified number of employees yesterday. Now-former employees posted about the layoffs on social media, and The Robot Report confirmed the reduction in staff. The company sent the following statement:

“As part of Agility’s ongoing efforts to structure the company for success, we have parted ways with a small number of employees that were not central to core product development and commercialization. At the same time, we are focused on meeting the extraordinary demand for bipedal robots across industrial use cases. That means ramping up production of Digit while continuing to win top-tier global customers, and adding new roles that meet these goals. We believe today’s actions will allow us to focus on the areas that drive productization, commercialization, and production of Digit.”

Johnson was named CEO of Agility Robotics one month ago. The veteran technology leader most recently served as CEO of Magic Leap, which produces augmented reality headsets. She led the company’s shift from consumer to enterprise and helped recapitalize the company.

Before Magic Leap, Johnson spent six years as executive vice president of business development at Microsoft. She reported directly to CEO Satya Nadella and was responsible for driving strategic partnerships and transactions to accelerate growth for the company and its customers.

Agility Robotics co-founder Damion Shelton, who served as CEO since the company’s founding in 2015, is now the company’s president and part of Johnson’s leadership team.

Humanoid robot race continues to accelerate

As we’ve said repeatedly over the past year, the humanoid race is heating up. And moves like this partnership with Manhattan, coupled with its fleet management system, show that Agility is the humanoid developer most ready to take on real-world work. The company has piloted its Digit humanoid with Amazon and GXO Logistics.

There are several other humanoid developers entering early pilots with customers. Figure recently raised $675 million and is working with BMW. And Apptronik is working with Mercedes-Benz.

Of course, all these humanoids still need to prove their reliability. NVIDIA is trying to help with its new foundation model for humanoids, called GR00T, that is designed to bring robotics and embodied AI together.

Accenture is also getting in on the action. Last week, it announced a strategic investment in Sanctuary AI, which is developing the Phoenix humanoid. The amount of the funding was not disclosed.

“AI-powered humanoid robots are essential to reinventing work and supporting human workers as labor shortage is becoming an issue in many countries and industries,” said Accenture.

You can learn more about the state of humanoids at the Robotics Summit & Expo, which takes place May 1-2 in Boston and is produced by The Robot Report and parent company WTWH Media.

Jonathan Hurst, co-founder and chief robot officer of Agility Robotics, will deliver a keynote called “Humanoid Robots Get to Work.” It will explore the technological breakthroughs propelling humanoids like Digit into real-world use cases. Attendees can learn about the ongoing challenges and opportunities and will go inside Digit’s first pilots.

Learn from Agility Robotics, Amazon, Disney, Teradyne and many more.

The post Agility Robotics partners with leading WMS provider, cuts staff appeared first on The Robot Report.

Here are the top 10 most popular stories on The Robot Report this past month. Subscribe to The Robot Report Newsletter or listen to The Robot Report Podcast to stay updated on the latest technology developments.

10. Robotics Engineering Career Fair to connect candidates, employers at Robotics Summit

The career fair will draw from the general robotics and artificial intelligence community, as well as from attendees at the Robotics Summit & Expo. Past co-located career fairs have drawn more than 800 candidates, and MassRobotics said it expects even more people at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center this year. Read More

9. SMC adds grippers for cobots from Universal Robots

SMC recently introduced a series of electric grippers designed to be used with collaborative robot arms from Universal Robots. Available in basic and longitudinal types, SMC said the LEHR series can be adapted to different industrial environments like narrow spaces. Read More

8. Anyware Robotics announces new add-on for Pixmo unloading robots

Anyware Robotics announced in March 2024 an add-on for its Pixmo robot for truck and container unloading. The patent-pending accessory includes a vertical lift with a conveyor belt that is attached to Pixmo between the robot and the boxes to be unloaded. Read More

7. Accenture invests in humanoid maker Sanctuary AI in March 2024

In its Technology Vision 2024 report, Accenture said 95% of the executives it surveyed agreed that “making technology more human will massively expand the opportunities of every industry.” Well, Accenture put its money where its mouth is. Accenture Ventures announced a strategic investment in Sanctuary AI, one of the companies developing humanoid robots. Read More

6. Cambrian Robotics obtains seed funding to provide vision for complex tasks

Machine vision startup Cambrian Robotics Ltd. has raised $3.5 million in seed+ funding. The company said it plans to use the investment to continue developing its AI platform to enable robot arms “to surpass human capabilities in complex vision-based tasks across a variety of industries.” Read More

5. Mobile Industrial Robots launches MiR1200 autonomous pallet jack

Autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) are among the systems benefitting from the latest advances in AI. Mobile Industrial Robots at LogiMAT in March 2024 launched the MiR1200 Pallet Jack, which it said uses 3D vision and AI to identify pallets for pickup and delivery “with unprecedented precision.” Read More

4. Reshape Automation aims to reduce barriers of robotics adoption

Companies in North America bought 31,159 robots in 2023. That’s a 30% decrease from 2022. And that’s not sitting well with robotics industry veteran Juan Aparicio. After working at Siemens for a decade and stops at Ready Robotics and Rapid Robotics, Aparicio hopes his new startup Reshape Automation can chip away at this problem. Read More

3. Mercedes-Benz testing Apollo humanoid

Apptronik announced that leading automotive brand Mercedes-Benz is testing its Apollo humanoid robot. As part of the agreement, Apptronik and Mercedes-Benz will collaborate on identifying applications for Apollo in automotive settings. Read More

2. NVIDIA announces new robotics products at GTC 2024

The NVIDIA GTC 2024 keynote kicked off like a rock concert in San Jose, Calif. More than 15,000 attendees filled the SAP Arena in anticipation of CEO Jensen Huang’s annual presentation of the latest product news from NVIDIA. He discussed the new Blackwell platform, improvements in simulation and AI, and all the humanoid robot developers using the company’s technology. Read More

1. Schneider Electric unveils new Lexium cobots at MODEX 2024

In Atlanta, Schneider Electric announced the release of two new collaborative robots: the Lexium RL 3 and RL 12, as well as the Lexium RL 18 model coming later this year. From single-axis machines to high-performance, multi-axis cobots, the Lexium line enables high-speed motion and control of up to 130 axes from one processor, said the company. It added that this enables precise positioning to help solve manufacturer production, flexibility, and sustainability challenges. Read More

The post Top 10 robotics news stories of March 2024 appeared first on The Robot Report.

OmniOn supports multiple technologies, including robotics. Click here to enlarge. Source: OmniOn Power

As delivery robots and autonomous vehicles spread, much of the design and development attention has focused on safe navigation and obstacle detection, according to OmniOn Power Inc. However, they will also require reliable charging and communications infrastructure, it said.

“We’ve mainly seen mobile robots indoors in factories, warehouses, or even restaurants,” said Gopal Mitra, global segment leader for industrials at OmniOn. “2023 was a big year for cost optimization for robotics companies. They tried to address space challenges and labor shortages in e-commerce, and power supply for delivery robots outdoors is another real challenge.”

“We look at three basic technologies: cloud and edge computing, which need to be supported by 5G, and power,” he told The Robot Report. “OmniOn Power addresses high-voltage DC, outdoor installations, and products for onboard robotics, including mounted power that should be able to work with fluctuating voltages as batteries deplete.”

OmniOn spun out of ABB

Formerly known as ABB Power Conversion, AcBel Polytech Inc. acquired the division in July 2023 and renamed it OmniOn Power Inc. in October.

The Plano, Texas-based company gained telecommunications experience as a part of Bell Labs and was part of General Electric Co. and ABB Ltd. OmniOn claimed that its “reliable products, industry expertise, and partnerships are helping customers realize the full potential of 5G, supporting expansive data center demands, [and] powering Industry 4.0.”

“Our business has grown in the robotics space, partly because of the lack of innovation as a lot of folks focused on scaling up rather than introducing new designs,” Mitra said. “Channels are trying to adopt the right robots for ‘order online, pick up at store,’ direct fulfillment, and warehouses. The increasing amount of returns is also a big concern, and we’re addressing a $500 million portion of the total addressable market by optimizing for the cost of development and implementation.”

Learn from Agility Robotics, Amazon, Disney, Teradyne and many more.

Power innovations to enable autonomy

Batteries add weight to robots and drones, and they can be affected by extreme cold. OmniOn said that more innovation is needed.

“There are two schools of thought for batteries — they could be long-lasting, or you can go with capacitors,” said Mitra. “As for the environment, there’s the harmonics on the grid and temperature, which can be up to 120 to 130 degrees [Fahrenheit; 48.8 to 54.4 Celsius] in places like Dallas.”

“Cold is more of an issue on the battery side than the internals, where the 2% heat generated is usually enough to keep power electronics warm,” he added. “We’re looking at the optimal time to charge, as well as discharge and weight.”

“There have been a number of innovations in batteries,” Mitra noted. “Lithium-ion is very popular in robotics and electric vehicles, and sodium-ion and other polymers are being explored. How U.S. investment in the semiconductor industry responds to China’s prevalence will also affect innovation in the next 10 years. Some are now looking at vertical stacking for denser chips.”

“OmniOn already has engineers working on providing power supplies to telecom and 5G networks,” he said. “We’re enablers of autonomy.”

OmniOn is working on providing power and connectivity to delivery and warehouse robots. Source: Adobe Stock

Other considerations for robotics

Ways to increase robot uptime include hot-swappable batteries, software that directs opportunistic recharging, and persistent wired or wireless charging on embedded grids, mostly indoors.

“Cost is a big deal — wireless charging is usually near-field using inductive charging, which is very attractive for many robots but can be expensive,” said Mitra. “With contact-based charging, you don’t need a converter circuit onboard the robot.”

By contrast, farming equipment or robotic lawnmowers can have wireless docking, eliminating the risk of clippings getting into contacts, he said. Wireless charging pads throughout a warehouse or factory have a high installation cost but can reduce the weight of batteries and operational costs. All of these options require industry consensus to become more widespread, Mitra observed.

How much can fleet management software help with power?

“It depends on the type of fleet,” replied Mitra. “We’re maturing simple routing within the constraints of restaurants, but delivery robots and vehicles have variable package loads. On the software side, we’ll see the impact of artificial intelligence on warehouse management, from machine vision to order processing.” 

Mitra also said that distributed power generation from photovoltaic cells could change the cost of energy.

“There are lots of opportunities to improve overall efficiency, but it’s a chicken-and-egg problem — first, the application has to come,” he said. “In hardware, non-isolated board-mounted products are emerging.”

5G to play a role as edge/cloud computing shifts

“For delivery robots, most of the compute is onboard, with nearby 5G hubs enabling mesh networks,” Mitra explained. “Edge computing needs to be supported by a 5G backbone, and peer-to-peer networks can manage the load.”

While robots and autonomous vehicles (AVs) need onboard processing for a spatial understanding of their environments and to navigate complex surroundings, the delivery function and reporting would benefit from 5G, he said.

“Look at certain regions in San Francisco — AVs are limited to certain areas, where the routes are largely pre-programmed,” said Mitra. “Once we see a prevalence of 5G and edge computing, machine learning for transport will be more scalable.”

“We have an engagement with a robotics company working with a major retailer on managing inventory and goods-to-person materials handling in the warehouse. Multi-tenant warehouses are coming,” Mitra said. “In addition to automated storage and retrieval systems [ASRS], we’re looking at multi-robot scenarios in the parking lot for groceries.”

The BPS 48V stackable power system is designed for 5G systems. Source: OmniOn

AI, humanoids could create new demands

Growing interest in applying generative AI to robotics will also affect networking and power demands.

“They’re not talked about yet in the context of on-premise or edge computing, but it will be interesting to see if delivery robots get these capabilities,” Mitra said. “AI has helped industry understand the need for high-performance computing, which has put a lot of pressure on power-supply manufacturers for smaller, more efficient systems.”

Similarly, interest in mobile manipulation and the humanoid form factor will also intensify pressure on compute and power management.

“Even if you just put an articulated robot arm on a mobile base, stepper motors require eight times the current to start, just to change from static to movement,” said Mitra.

“We still don’t have a good solution for batteries that can support humanoids for the long term,” he asserted. “They’ll also need a power train that can handle a wide range of discharge, from walking to the necessary strength for lifting boxes.”

OmniOn said it expects the demand for delivery robots, automated warehouses, and connected infrastructure to grow at 12% to 14%. Power management may not be standardized, depending on the size of a robot and its number of sensors, and edge/cloud computing and different charging approaches will continue to evolve, said Mitra. 

“We’re excited see how wireless charging affects the robotics space,” he said. “While the cost has led to different adoption than initially expected, in the long term, the cost of infrastructure could be lower, and it could be more easily managed.”

The post OmniOn looks to power, network next-gen delivery robots appeared first on The Robot Report.