Left: Vivian Chu and Andrea Thomaz, the co-founders of Diligent Robotics; right: Kathleen Brandes and Ros Shinkle, the co-founders of Adagy Robotics. | Sources: Diligent Robotics, Adagy Robotics

Almost half of all startups that began in 2021 were formed by women, according to human resources cloud software company Gusto. Within the robotics industry, however, it’s a different story. Women make up only 34% of the STEM workforce, according to the National Girls Collaborative Project, and they hold only 16% of robotics and engineering roles. 

Those numbers, however, don’t tell us how many women start robotics companies. There isn’t a lot of data about the number of startups that begin every year or how many robotics companies are operating, in general. Let alone about the backgrounds of the founders behind them. 

To get a picture of how many women are founders of robotics companies, I combed through our 2024 February and March funding recaps. Of the 78 robotics companies that raised money during those two months, and whose founders could be identified, only 10 had a woman on their founding team, just 12.8%.

Of course, this metric doesn’t tell us how many robotics companies in general have female founders, but it does give us a better idea of what that breakdown might look like. This is why I spoke to Ros Shinkle and Kathleen Brandes, the founders of Adagy Robotics, and Andrea Thomaz and Vivian Chu, the founders of Diligent Robotics, about their experiences within the industry. 

Founders talk about the early days of a startup

Diligent and Adagy are in two very different places as companies. Adagy launched earlier this year, and it specializes in remote intervention services. Shinkle and Brandes are at the beginning of their journey as founders and are part of Y Combinator, a startup accelerator. They’re currently the only employees of the company. 

“Adagy Robotics is currently a remote intervention service for rescuing robots,” said Brandes, the company’s chief technology officer (CTO).

“For example, when a tractor robot fails in the field, instead of calling out to the farmer who has a lot more important things to do in his day, that tractor robot can now call out to our trained operators,” she said. “They’ll take over, drive the robot to safety, and allow it to resume its autonomous operations.”

Adagy looks to a future with AI

Today, Adagy Robotics is starting out with fully human-driven operations, said Shinkle, CEO. In the future, however, the company is interested in layering machine learning and generative AI techniques to assist human operators and allow them to do their jobs more efficiently. The company is also exploring error-prevention techniques for robots. 

“We’re really excited about logistics and manufacturing right now,” Shinkle said. “In particular, I think AMRs [autonomous mobile robots] are widely used in logistics. And although they’re widely used, they still continue to face the same kinds of problems.”

“For example, they often rely on these sort of dense visual clues called fiducials or APR tags to help localize in a facility,” she noted. “If one of those is scuffed or torn or falls down, the robots can get lost. This is a great example of a situation in which we could come in and help the robots get back safely. We’re also excited about manipulation and failed picking tasks as well.”

Shinkle and Brandes described the early days of running a startup as challenging but fun. Every day is about putting out the most urgent fire, said Shinkle.

Ros Shinkle and Kathleen Brandes, the founders of Adagy Robotics, met at Boston Dynamics. Source: Y Combinator

Bringing a startup to maturity 

On the other hand, Diligent Robotics was founded in 2017. Like many robotics companies, Diligent started in a research lab. Thomaz, the company’s co-founder and CEO, was running a robotics lab that Chu, its co-founder and CTO, joined as a Ph.D. student in 2012.

The start of the company was slow, Thomaz said. She was still a professor and Chu a graduate student. Tomaz’s lab earned two National Science Foundation grants that gave Tomaz and Chu the opportunity to learn from around 150 people in the healthcare industry. 

“I don’t know that we would have been able to start this company as two men,” Thomaz said. “Because the thing that we did, for two years at least, was go and embed ourselves in nursing teams, with a robot, and ask nurses, who are 80% women, ‘What would you have this robot do?’”

“I’m not sure we would have been as accepted in that community as a couple of guys with their robot,” she continued. 

Once they had found a use case that would address the needs of the industry, Thomaz and Chu said they spent a summer pitching and looking for venture capital. In total, Thomaz said they spent a year and a half in the research stage before officially launching the company.

Last year, Diligent hit 90 robots working in the field. Its flagship robot, Moxi, aids hospital staffers by performing non-patient-facing tasks like running supplies, delivering lab samples, fetching items from a central supply, distributing personal protective equipment (PPE), and delivering medications. Moxi is now opening 100,000 doors every month across its various deployments.

Diligent is dedicated to diversity

As Diligent Robotics has grown, Thomaz and Chu said they’ve actively tried to keep the company diverse. 

“Early on, we recognized that it’s not only important to have a diverse team, but to have a diverse team at all levels,” Thomaz said. “It’s really good to make sure that your most junior people aren’t the most diverse, and then your more senior people are all one type of person.”

Chu also said the team focused on making job postings well-known among all intersections of the robotics community, instead of just relying on the applications that passively came in. Shinkle echoed similar sentiments when talking about building Adagy’s team as it grows. 

“We believe that diversity is a strength,” Shinkle said. “Diversity of background and diversity of thought leads to stronger problem solving, so that’s definitely a closely held company belief.” 

Female founders find community within the industry 

All four of the women I spoke to both emphasized the importance of finding mentors and a community within the industry. 

“One thing that’s been really helpful is the amazing community, unity, and friendship that women have within the industry,” Brandes said. “We’ve become great friends and are now starting a company together, as one example. And I think fostering that community and having that community continue to grow and expand has been a big component.” 

“For me, it was fantastic seeing these role models that blaze through all of the stereotypes,” Chu said. “It really gives me the confidence to do the same.”

“I’ve had friends that obviously didn’t have that experience, and it’s hard hearing what they’ve had to go through,” she acknolwedged. “I’ve been very lucky to have some amazing champions throughout a lot of my career.” 

The founders also had advice to share with women who are considering starting a robotics company. 

“Reach out to as many people for advice as possible, because there’s so many that have gone through the startup journey,” Chu said. “If you collect a wide variety of people that you can reach out to … you can just continually ask questions.”

“My advice would be to just do it,” Brandes said. “Be confident that your are strong enough and successful enough to do this.” 

“I think robotics is a great place for female leadership,” Thomaz said. “Historically, there’s been a lot of really great trailblazers, and some people who’ve really defined the field like Manuela Veloso and Maya Tarik, and there are a bunch of other people that I’m not naming.”

“But I think that in and of itself makes robotics a great place for women to lead the way in commercialization as well,” she concluded. “It’s a big, broad systems-level problem, which I think requires a diverse solution, and so that’s ripe for a really diverse team.”

Editor’s note: The Robotics Summit & Expo this week will be hosting a Women in Robotics Breakfast and the MassRobotics Engineering Career Fair, among other networking events.

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UR cobots are can now use SRCI, a standard interface between PLCs and robots. | Source: Universal Robots

Collaborative robots are designed to be easy to use, but they also need to work with other systems. Universal Robots A/S announced that it has integrated the Standard Robot Command Interface, or SRCI, into its software. The Odense, Denmark-based company claimed that it is among the first cobot vendors to offer this functionality.

“By having our robots connect seamlessly to a global industry leader like Siemens, we can now offer our partners and customers, both existing and prospective, faster integration and higher ease of use,“ stated Daniel Friedman, global director of strategic partnerships at Universal Robots. “We strive to make cobot automation as simple as possible for our customers, and this is yet another step in our commitment to provide automation for anyone, anywhere.”

Universal Robots said SRCI is available for its e-Series family of cobots and the next-generation UR20 and UR30. It can be installed and activated with PolyScope Version 5.15 or higher using the URcap software add-on. 

SRCI offers a universal interface for robot makers

Siemens said SRCI is a new standard for robot manufacturers that aims to create a single interface between programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and robots. It aims to reduce service and maintenance complexity through a single robot library and enhanced connectivity. 

Universal Robots added that the uniform cross-platform data interface of the SRCI will make robot implementation interoperable. It also standardizes definitions and robot commands between UR collaborative robots and Siemens PLCs.

“This allows for easier and quicker setup and simplifies the deployment of UR robots into existing and new Siemens ecosystem-based production lines,” the company said. Earlier this month, Siemens, Universal Robots, and 3D camera vendor Zivid said they have joined forces to help automate intralogistics fulfillment.

Siemens asserted that it “is the first — and currently only — PLC vendor supporting SRCI in the automation market.” 

“We are encouraged that cobots from Universal Robots can now be controlled via the SRCI and can be programmed by Simatic users,” said Rolf Heinsohn, senior vice president of factory automation segment control at Siemens.

“We want to accelerate factory automation and scale the use of robots in industry by making them simple and available to all our customers` employees,” he added. “It is a great advantage for our customers to be able to easily integrate and use UR’s robots together with the Siemens PLCs in their production.”

Catch up with Teradyne at the Robotics Summit

Universal Robots is a subsidiary of Teradyne Inc. Ujjwal Kumar, group president of Teradyne Robotics, will be giving a keynote presentation at the Robotics Summit & Expo next week. In it, he will share some lessons he has learned and how they can be applied to accelerate the transformation of industry with robotics.

An RBR50 Robotics Innovation Award Winner, Universal Robots will be among the organizations honored at the inaugural RBR50 Gala.

Registration is now open for the Robotics Summit & Expo, which will be on May 1 and 2 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. The event will include more than 200 exhibitors, various networking opportunities, a Women in Robotics breakfast, a career fair, an engineering theater, a startup showcase, and more.

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UR cobots at the Peugeot assembly plant in France. | Source: Teradyne

My LinkedIn inbox has been busier than usual over the last couple of weeks, since I shared an opinion piece in Forbes titled “The Reinvention of the Manufacturing Industry,” exploring how a new generation of advanced robotics is helping to democratize manufacturing, making robots affordable for companies of all sizes.

Several of my professional contacts have reached out to ask: Are collaborative robots really just for small and medium-sized companies then? We know this is not true, and so I need to offer some further explanation.

Since the inception of mechanization and mass-production processes at the start of the last century, the tools large manufacturers have used to drive competitiveness and efficiency have been geared towards using size as an advantage — economies of scale, large industrial robots for high-volume low-mix tasks, large budgets to fund efficiency programs like lean and six sigma, and the ability to outsource labor at scale to anywhere with ease.

However, these levers designed for big companies didn’t work for smaller businesses. That’s why “new age” robotics, led by collaborative robots and autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), has been a game changer for many small to midsize enterprises. But it’s not where the cobot story ends. Or ironically, even began.

For the large manufacturers, competitive pressure drove need for differentiation, which increased product variations. You can feel that on every one of their assembly lines today.

But several large manufacturers are still stuck with the old tools designed for low-mix, high-volume manufacturing in this new reality, where each of their factories and warehouses have increasingly high-mix and smaller batch sizes. Manufacturers are increasingly using advanced technologies like cobots and AMRs to make their operations nimbler and more flexible while speeding up time to market.

The origin of the cobot

Few people today realize that collaborative robots were first designed with large companies in mind.

The founders of Universal Robots (UR) examined businesses already using industrial robots and set themselves the challenge of creating something that was more easily reprogrammable for different functions across factory floors. With the competition that manufacturers face today, the need for product variations for differentiation matters greatly That feeling is palpable when I walk their assembly line.

The solution that UR came up with? The world’s first commercially viable cobot – a child of two separate university research projects.

The first project sought to create a toy robot so easy to program that a child could do it in half an hour.

The second project focused on the needs of the food industry in Denmark, which at the time was looking for a more flexible approach to automation that would allow factory employees to reconfigure production lines to accommodate new products. Engineers that tried to build that flexibility into traditional industrial robots got nowhere – it was simply impossible for workers on the factory floor to learn how to reprogram the technology that existed.

The above projects came together, and the rest, as they say, is history. The result was an easily programable, highly versatile robot.

The use of cobots in large organizations today

The global market for collaborative robots was expected to hit $1.6 billion at the end of 2023, with a compound annual growth rate of 26% to 2026, as predicted by Research and Markets. It attributed this increase to a rise in smart factories and growing demand in the Asia-Pacific region.

While it’s true that cobots are democratizing robotics, they have always been of great use to large companies. But I believe that large manufacturers are yet to fully embrace the capabilities they offer.

Solid economic drivers for increased uptake are present, including labor and skills shortages, as recent research suggests large companies have the tallest hill to climb when it comes to employee retention.

It’s no wonder that many large companies – including major global corporations like Siemens, Toyota, and Novo Nordisk – have fully integrated cobot technology to make their operations more nimble.

The time has now come for the industry to do this across the board. In a competitive world, large companies have no choice but to increase agility at every turn. Slow down, and they risk falling foul to more nimble competition.

New-age robotics offers greater efficiency and speed to market, and enterprises need to board this train today or risk getting left behind on the platform.

The integration of cobots and industrial automation

Here too, it’s really exciting to witness how collaborative robots are now working with traditional industrial robots.

Retrofitting a production line with cobots tends to be fairly straightforward, partly because of the system’s small footprint. Deeper integration between cobots and traditional industrial robots is also now often possible through the programmable logic controller (PLC).

But so much more can be done. The potential opportunities awaiting large players in 2024 are colossal, and I can’t wait to see more embracing an all-encompassing automation process in manufacturing, positioning cobots to increase productivity, product quality, and safety.

Looking to the future: AI-enabled cobots and more sophisticated applications

As machine learning and AI-enabled cobot applications become more widely available, larger businesses are perfectly positioned to leverage this cutting-edge tech to support their complex and sophisticated business needs. From quality inspection using computer vision to handling high-mix applications on the production floor, I see companies using cobots to improve costs and enhance customer satisfaction.

Cobots have become user-friendly enough for even the smallest businesses, helping to democratize manufacturing. But they are also being paired with some of the world’s most sophisticated technologies, supporting global-scale companies in becoming more productive than ever.

About the author

Ujjwal Kumar is group president of Teradyne Robotics. Over his 25-plus-year career, Kumar has successfully scaled businesses at major multinationals including General Motors, General Electric, and Honeywell.

Kumar will be giving a keynote presentation at the Robotics Summit & Expo next week. In it, he will share some lessons he has learned and how they can be applied to accelerate the transformation of industry with robotics. Registration is now open for the event, which will be on May 1 and 2 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.

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New offerings include the igusGO AI-driven app and more low-cost automation. Source: igus

At its annual press conference last week, igus GmbH previewed numerous new products in advance of the Hannover Messe trade show. The Cologne, Germany-based company announced 247 new products, including  lubrication-free drives using motion plastics and new robots for educational, service, and industrial applications.

“We’re offering a mobile manipulator for small companies,” said Alexander Mühlens, head of automation technology and robotics at igus. He touted the company’s low-cost automation approach.

“ReBeL on Wheels” combines a collaborative robot arm with an autonomous mobile robot for €17,999 ($19,202 U.S.). An educational version is available for €14,699 ($15,682). igus said that is 10x more affordable than other models, and it is starting to offer the systems in the German market. 

The company, whose U.S. headquarters are in Rumford, R.I., won a 2024 RBR50 Robotics Innovation Award for a finger gripper to go with the ReBeL cobot. igus will be exhibiting at next week’s Robotics Summit & Expo at Booth 414 in Hall C in the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.

In addition, Mühlens will present a session at 2:45 p.m. EDT in Room 50 on Wednesday, May 1, on “Automate Your Factory for $2,799.” Registration is now open for the event.

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Tools make robots easier for SMEs to configure

Users can easily add sensors, the igus Robot Control programming software, and a sound bar to ReBeL on Wheels, said Mühlens. The mobile manipulator includes gearboxes using the company’s patented motion plastics.

To help people “try before you buy,” igus allows for free remote testing. “You can scan a QR code into your mobile phone for to test the robot butler,” Mühlens noted.

In addition, the “Envisioner” in igus Robot Control can help robotics developers and integrators, he said. The Configurator in the RBTX online marketplace shows the center of gravity for every part in a delta robot cell, allowing the system to easily pick and place them.

“It automatically knows the center of gravity, and you can just buy the webcam for under €100 [$106.67],” said Mühlens. “We’ll be picking RBTX chocolates at Hannover Messe.”

“Everyone is looking for solutions for screwing and gluing in the furniture industry, for instance,” he said. “Now with RBTX and our 3D machine planner, you can combine robots with grippers and conveyors into cells for one fixed price.”

In fact, igus uses AI so that if a user uploads a photo, it can give a 3D recommendation.

“With the Configurator, a customer can take a few steps and get a live price,” Mühlens explained. “For example, you could choose ReBeL and a gripper for a cell, get measurements within the program, download files, and check out all the parts and prices. You can also choose an installation and buildup service or do it yourself.”

igus said its new machine planner offers small and midsize enterprises (SMEs) the ability to define cobot workspaces, build around its robots, and choose robot housings.

Motion-plastic parts get four-year guarantee

Machine failures due to insufficient lubrication cost $750 billion annually, and more than 24 million tons of lubricant seep into water and soil every year, according to igus. The company said its self-lubricating, high-performance polymers, as well as the use of artificial intelligence and virtual reality in design, can reduce such costly waste.

This year, igus is extending its four-year product guarantee to all of its dry-tech products. It also offers free replacement of bearings, drives, 3D-printed parts, and linear actuators.

These moves demonstrate the company’s confidence in their long service life and consciousness of the importance of sustainability in Industry 4.0, said Stefan Niermann, vice president and head of the drylin division, and Rainer Rössel, vice president and head of the chainflex division at igus.

“The performance of motion plastics is often underestimated,” added Lars Butenschön, business unit manager for iglidur bearings at igus. He cited their utility in construction and agriculture. The company is also offering new high-load bearings for heavy machinery in its “Zero Lubrication” range. 

In addition, lubrication-free bearings are suitable for food and packaging applications, said Michael Offner, vice president and head of industry management at the family-owned company.

“An enormous range of applications could use them,” noted Tobias Vogel, igus’ CEO of bearings and linear technology. With the igusGO app, machine builders can use voice controls and AI chat to configure excavators with such parts, he said.

As electrification garners more interest worldwide, particularly in e-mobility, battery production, and shore power, motion plastics can be an enabling technology, asserted Martin Tiling, head of igus’ shore power business unit.

igus reports €1.13B turnover, launches bike brand

After generating €1.15 billion ($1.23 billion) in 2022, igus reported €1.13 billion ($1.21 billion) for 2023. While the global economic slowdown affected the company, it is still approaching its goal of 1 million industrial customers per year, stated Michael Blass, managing director of e-chain systems.

“We are therefore pleased that we have at least come a little closer to this goal in a difficult year,” he said. “We have invested €433 million [$464.6 million] in this plan over the last three years, €210 million [$224.8 million] of which at the Cologne site.”

igus has invested in expanded production in Germany and the U.S., accelerating fulfillment of orders to within a few days, and continuing research and development, according to Blass. It is also planning construction in China, Taiwan, India, Italy, Spain, Poland, Mexico, and Turkey.

To demonstrate its motion plastics at human rather than industrial scale, the company has developed the igus:bike from recycled materials. The bicycle, which won’t rust and can be recycled itself, is now going into serial production under the new brand name RCYL. It will go on the market in Germany for €1,200 ($1,284) this year.

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Rockwell works with partners to streamline automated manufacturing. Source: Business Wire

Rockwell Automation yesterday announced that it is working with Microsoft “to enable intelligent factories by simplifying complexity and helping empower customers to achieve sustainability goals and operational excellence.” The companies said their innovations will be on display this week at Hannover Messe.

Late last year, Rockwell added Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service to its FactoryTalk Design Studio to accelerate time to market for its customers. The partners said they “will provide cutting-edge industrial transformation systems across the value chain, rapidly, and at scale with AI-assisted design, connected data, and agile production optimization.”

“Rockwell’s partnership with Microsoft is a shared vision of creating and delivering the best solutions to empower the future of industrial operations,” stated Nicole Denil, global vice president of market access at Rockwell Automation. “We simplify complexity in how manufacturers design, operate, and maintain their enterprises and empower their people.”

Rockwell Automation develops industrial automation and digital transformation systems. The Milwaukee-based company employs approximately 29,000 people in more than 100 countries.

In 2021, it made $7 billion in sales, over $3 billion of which were in intelligent devices. In September 2023, Rockwell acquired mobile robot maker Clearpath Robotics and its OTTO Motors unit.

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Partners to apply AI to design, simulation

Rockwell’s FactoryTalk Design Studio is a cloud-based, software-defined industrial automation design environment. The company said it enables developers to improve their collaboration and productivity with a simplified way to work.

Microsoft and Rockwell said the integration of Azure OpenAI Service into FactoryTalk Design Studio will help engineers generate code using natural language prompts, automate routine tasks, and improve design efficiency. Manufacturers will have access to edge AI, Internet of Things (IoT), and automation systems to allow people, processes, and technology to operate seamlessly between physical and digital twin environments, they asserted. 

Microsoft claimed that Azure’s adaptive cloud approach will enable manufacturers to unify and streamline siloed teams, sites, and systems with FactoryTalk edge and cloud systems while scaling applications and insights. 

“Manufacturers are always looking for ways to drive modernization, optimize efficiency, and reduce costs,” said Dominik Wee, corporate vice president of manufacturing and mobility at Microsoft. “By combining Microsoft’s AI capabilities and trusted cloud platform with Rockwell’s industrial automation solutions, manufacturers will have the tools they need to speed up these objectives and create smart factories of the future.”

The companies are also building on their recently announced partnership with NVIDIA. The trio said it’s working to allow the creation, real-time management, and simulation of digital twins that will be accelerated using Microsoft’s AI-assisted tools and cloud technology. 

In addition, the companies are integrating Rockwell’s Plex manufacturing execution system (MES) with FactoryTalk Data Mosaix and Microsoft’s Cloud for Manufacturing. Manufacturers will benefit from AI tools that help drive productivity, safety, and quality, said the partners. All of these tools focus on resolving quality issues with corrective actions and root-cause analysis. 

See Rockwell Automation at the Robotics Summit

Ryan Gariepy, the co-founder and chief technology officer of Clearpath Robotics, a subsidiary of Rockwell Automation, will be speaking at the Robotics Summit & Expo on May 2 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.

His talk, “The Bots Are Here. What’s Next?” will take a look at how companies and organizations can take advantage of the latest robotics trends to shape their futures.

The Robotics Summit & Expo focuses on the design, development, and scaling of commercial robots. WTWH Media, which also produces The Robot Report, said it expects a record 5,000 attendees and more than 200 exhibitors. This year’s event will also include an Automated Warehouse track and pavilion. Register now for the event.

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Custom user interface for Flexiv Rizon 4 sanding robot. Source: Flexiv Robotics

By integrating sensing, robotics, and artificial intelligence, Flexiv Robotics Inc. claimed that it can improve multiple industrial processes, from sanding to sortation. It develops and manufactures general-purpose, adaptive robots.

Founded in 2016, Flexiv produces the Rizon arm with seven degrees of freedom and the Moonlight force-controlled parallel robot. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company has offices in China, Taiwan, and Singapore.

Last month, Red Bluff, Calif.-based systems integrator DOCO Engineering partnered with Flexiv to further expand its presence in North America. More recently, Flexiv shared a case study and Earth Day initiatives.

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EsVata Shutter chooses, quickly installs Rizon 4

Flexiv Robotics recently helped Rosemead, Calif.-based EsVata Shutter automate sanding of window blinds. The company said its adaptive technology sped up the sanding process by 80% and increased the quality and consistency of surface finishing.

“Our commitment to quality led us to select the Rizon 4 from a sea of competitors,” stated Paul Hsieh, founder of EsVata. “Its exceptional precision, powered by advanced force sensors in each of its seven joints, made it the ideal solution for our sanding needs.”

Flexiv said it combined its robotic arm and sensing technology with an OnRobot Sander to free employees for more value-added tasks.

Howard Huang, operations director for North America at Flexiv, replied to the following questions from The Robot Report:

What was required to integrate Flexiv and EsVata’s systems?

Huang: The integration of Flexiv’s Rizon 4 sanding solution within EsVata’s production facility required a customized approach due to EsVata’s lack of a PLC [programmable logic controller] or an existing automated production environment.

Understanding that EsVata is a smaller manufacturer that values modularity and customizability, we implemented a standalone system to boost EsVata’s production capabilities that didn’t necessitate a comprehensive revamp or modification of their current infrastructure, enabling a smooth, trouble-free integration.

How long did it take to set up?

Huang: Integrating Flexiv’s technology into EsVata’s manufacturing operations was achieved in a relatively brief period. The initial setup, which included the installation, configuration, and calibration of the robotic system, was completed in about three days.

This quick deployment reflects the system’s inherent useability and ease of programming, as well as the effective collaboration between Flexiv’s and EsVata’s technical teams. With the installation completed over a long weekend, starting on the Saturday, production was able to resume on Tuesday.

Rizon has automated shutter sanding at EsVata. Source: Flexiv Robotics

System reduces staff effort, production time

What do the people who previously did this sanding do now? Do they supervise the robots, or what other tasks can they do?

Huang: With the sanding solution incorporated into the production line, some staff members have transitioned into supervisory roles to monitor the automated processes or have been assigned to specialized sanding tasks that require a human touch, such as fine corner sanding, which the robot is not programmed to handle.

This redistribution of labor has safeguarded jobs by increasing production efficiency and improved job satisfaction by reducing the physical strain and the monotony associated with manual sanding tasks.

How long did it take for EsVata to realize the time savings on the shutter sanding?

Huang: EsVata recognized the time savings immediately, as the efficiency gains were apparent from the onset of the system’s initiation. With the massive reduction in the time taken to sand a shutter, it was clear that our sanding solution could not only replicate the human sanding process, but also do it far quicker and to a higher standard.

To get consistency of output with manual labor requires a time investment, whereas for a robot, replicating a precise set of actions to achieve a predetermined outcome is simple. As the robot never tires or makes a mistake, it was obvious that the automated system would be faster, but both EsVata and ourselves were surprised at the 80% time decrease.

What are the next steps in this deployment?

Huang: While the current project is complete, EsVata is contemplating installing further adaptive automation solutions within its factory to boost production capacity. This decision is being carefully considered, taking into account a return-on-investment [ROI] analysis, prevailing market conditions, and EsVata’s strategic expansion goals.

An EnVata worker supervises the Rizon sanding robot. Source: Flexiv Robotics

Flexiv Robotics gripper, cleaning station to aid recycling  

Last week, Flexiv Robotics said it has modified the Grav Enhanced robotic gripper to be cleaned in its Grav Enhanced Automated Cleaning Station. The company said this helps the gripper retain its effectiveness in picking up objects weighing up to 5 kg (11 lb.) and those covered with dust.

For Earth Day today, Flexiv showed off a combination of its Grave Enhanced Gecko Gripper, a Rizon 4 adaptive robot, a 3D depth camera, and its AnyGrasp algorithm to identify and sort household waste for recycling (see video below). The company added that the new cleaning station has helped expand its product capabilities.

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The PUDU T300 mobile robot dis designed for use in tight aisles with heavy payloads. Source: Pudu Robotics

Pudu Technology Co. said today at Hannover Messe that it is expanding from service robots into supply chain applications with the new PUDU T300 mobile robot. The Shenzhen, China-based company said its new robot offers maneuverability, a “map-and-go” feature, and flexible deployment to help manufacturers worldwide.

“There is a huge demand from industrial clients for automated, flexible robotics solutions that can operate continuously to meet high production rates and improve operational efficiency,” stated Felix Zhang, founder and CEO of Pudu Robotics.

“As manufacturers struggle to attract and retain talent, the T300 fills the immediate gap by seamlessly integrating with facilities’ current processes, as well as optimizing operations to spur sector-wide innovation,” he said.

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Pudu said that it holds nearly 1,000 patents worldwide and that it has shipped more than 70,000 units to retail, dining, hospitality, healthcare, entertainment, and education customers. The company also specified the following capabilities:

• VSLAM+ navigation: The new mobile robot can adapt to environments with ceilings up to 30 m (98.4 ft.).
• Internet of Things (loT): PUDU T300 includes secure door access, elevator control, a self-configuring network with call options, and production-line material requests via an app for integration into production processes.
• Multimodal interaction: High-brightness operation-indicator lights and traffic-signal lights display PUDU T300’s position and cruising intentions, with customizable buttons for collaboration and audible alerts for reminders.
• Efficient charging: Pudu said the T300 features automatic recharging in about two hours and quick battery-swapping capabilities, allowing for continuous 24/7 operation to cater to different customer requirements.
• Safety compliance: PUDU T300 adheres to ISO 3691-4 industrial safety requirements and includes lidar, depth camera, collision-protection edges, and emergency stop buttons.

Zhang replied to the following questions from The Robot Report:

Pudu Robotics sets its sights on manufacturers

Since there are already numerous mobile robot providers serving manufacturing and warehousing, why did Pudu decide now to get into that space?

Zhang: Pudu Robotics decided to venture into the industrial mobile robot market due to the recognition of a significant demand for lightweight material transportation within industrial settings.

These environments often present complex challenges such as narrow pathways, mixed-traffic scenarios with both humans and machines, and areas with suspended obstacles that require robots to operate safely and flexibly. Unfortunately, there is a gap in the market, as existing products do not adequately fulfill the needs of these specific applications.

Our experience in the foodservice industry, where similar demands for safety, flexibility, and advanced navigation exist, has allowed us to accumulate a wealth of technical expertise, such as SLAM technology and a robust supply chain system. We believe that these skills and resources are directly transferable and highly beneficial to the industrial domain.

Moreover, the industrial robotics market presents several favorable conditions for Pudu Robotics:

• The market potential is vast.
• The frequency of item delivery in the industrial sector is much higher, with a stronger need for such services. A single robot can perform over 200 delivery tasks per day compared with the food service industry, where a robot performing over 70 tasks a day is already considered significant.
• The acceptance of robot deliveries in the industrial sector is higher due to the commonality of automated transportation and manufacturing processes.
• Our market research and practice have shown that by selling standardized products, we can successfully cater to industrial customers.

What was the biggest difference in developing mobile robots for manufacturing in comparison with the service robots that Pudu is known for?

PUDU T300 moving a box in standard mode. Source; Pudu Robotics

Zhang: The biggest difference in developing robots for manufacturing in comparison to service robots lies within the distinct market needs and opportunities of the industrial sector. Manufacturing allows for more standardization, higher frequency of use, and stronger customer demand than the service industry.

Yet the value-added is similar. Both manufacturing and service industries turn to automation to alleviate labor shortages, bolster workplace safety and productivity, and adapt to an evolving market. Pudu can easily leverage its expertise in one to innovate within the other.

What’s the biggest differentiator between the T300 and other companies’ robots?

Zhang: PUDU T300 features automatic recharging and quick battery-swapping capabilities. This allows for continuous 24/7 operation and allows customers to expedite production.

With its ability to navigate through spaces as narrow as 60 cm [23.6 in.], the T300 can shuttle between production lines, delivering supplies without hindrance.

T300 also supports several key functions like PUDU VSLAM+, a fusion of laser SLAM and visual SLAM for positioning, which PUDU has extensive experience in, this lets the robot adapt to its environment and update its map in real time.

PUDU T300 can tow a cart. Source: Pudu Robotics

PUDU T300 will work with PUDUlink platform

What’s the new robot‘s payload capacity? What sorts of goods is the T300 designed to move — machine parts, pallets, or something else?

Zhang: The PUDU T300 has a payload capacity of 300 kg [661.3 lb.] and is specifically designed to serve in the material logistics of discrete manufacturing, handling tasks like delivering supplies to production lines, transferring materials between different production areas, and assisting in the delivery of samples for quality inspection.

The PUDU T300 is capable of transporting raw materials, cardboard boxes, material bins, material racks, and more.

PUDU T300 in lifting mode. Source: Pudu Robotics

Since the new robots are designed for narrow aisles, are they capable of backing up if they encounter obstacles?

Zhang: The T300 has exceptional maneuverability, remaining agile if it encounters obstacles. The robot is able to cross 0.7 in. [1.7 cm] thresholds and 1.3 in. [3.3 cm] gutters, as well as to leverage laser and visual SLAM for positioning in spaces up to 200,000 sq. m [2.1 million sq. ft.].

In addition to these capabilities, the T300 is also designed with a reverse function, enabling it to back up and disengage from any impediments it may encounter.

In addition to the VSLAM capabilities, how will Pudu’s latest robots be monitored — will the company offer fleet management software, or will it work with third-party platforms?

Zhang: The PUDU T300 will be monitored using our proprietary distributed scheduling system, which allows for efficient management and coordination of the robot fleet.

Additionally, the T300 supports PUDUlink, a platform developed by Pudu Robotics for remote device management. This platform enables operators to monitor, control, and update the robots from a centralized location, ensuring smooth operation and quick response to any issues that may arise.

Furthermore, for those clients who wish to integrate the T300 with their existing third-party fleet management or scheduling systems, the T300 is designed to be compatible with third-party APIs [application programming interfaces]. This ensures that our robots can be seamlessly incorporated into a wide range of industrial and logistical environments, providing flexibility to users who already have established systems in place.

What customers did Pudu work with in developing this robot, and is it in trials or is it already available?

Zhang: T300 was developed specifically for customers within the industrial sector. Target customers include entities within manufacturing, such as 3C [computer, communication, and consumer] electronics manufactures, automotive parts processing facilities, metalworking and hardware processing enterprises, and more.

PUDU T300 in shelf mode. Source: Pudu Robotics

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The MOTOMAN NEXT series, which is powered by NVIDIA Jetson Orin and Wind River Linux. | Source: Yaskawa Electric

Wind River Systems Inc. this week announced that Yaskawa Electric Corp. is using Wind River Linux in the development of its new product MOTOMAN NEXT. The company said its software will enable Yaskawa’s industrial robots to autonomously adapt to their environment and make judgments with advanced artificial intelligence. 

MOTOMAN NEXT is powered by NVIDIA Jetson Orin and Wind River Linux. Yaskawa claimed that these systems will help the robot “realize new levels of intelligence and autonomy.”

Founded in 1915, Yaskawa Electric said it has transformed from a motor manufacturer and an automation company to a mechatronics company. The Katakyushu, Japan-based business provides servo motors, controllers, AC drives, and industrial robots.

AI opens new possibilities, says Wind River

“AI is opening exciting new pathways,” stated Amit Ronen, chief customer officer at Wind River. “We are pleased to support the next generation of AI-capable robotics from an industry leader such as Yaskawa in combination with Wind River Linux and NVIDIA Jetson.”

“Together with Yaskawa and NVIDIA, we can help teams rapidly innovate in machine learning and AI to deliver more intelligent systems,” he added.

Wind River Linux helps teams develop, deploy, and operate robust, reliable, and secure embedded systems running on a purpose-built Linux operating system, according to Wind River. The Alameda, Ca.-based company said it offers high stability and security to meet high-performance needs for mission-critical applications.

Yaskawa MOTOMAN NEXT gains perception, judgement 

Wind River and Yaskawa Electric said that MOTOMAN NEXT can handle challenging tasks in unstructured environments. This allows it to drive automation into new application areas that were previously challenging because of the need for human-level perception and judgment capabilities. 

MOTOMAN NEXT can execute tasks based on its understanding of changes in its surrounding environment and the system’s status, claimed the companies. This includes accounting for other robots and peripheral devices.

The robot can perform complex tasks, like navigating an optimal path to avoid obstacles or sorting and boxing items of varying color and shape. Yaskawa and Wind River said the robot can also handle tasks with many variables and uncertain elements. 

MOTOMAN NEXT’s autonomous control unit uses Wind River Linux and runs on NVIDIA Jetson Orin, a platform for edge AI, embedded intelligence, and robotics applications. 

NVIDIA said Jetson provides scalable software, a modern AI stack, production-ready ROS packages, and application-specific AI workflows. The company added that it can share AI software and cloud-native workflows while delivering the power-efficiency required for building software-defined autonomous machines and edge AI systems.

The companies added that the combination of Wind River Linux and the NVIDIA Jetson platform enables advanced AI edge applications. 

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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.

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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.”

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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.”

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Collaborative Robotics has been developing a system for trustworthy operations. Source: Adobe Stock, Photoshopped by The Robot Report

Collaborative Robotics today closed a $100 million Series B round on the road to commercializing its autonomous mobile manipulator. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company said it is developing robots that can safely and affordably work alongside people in varied manufacturing, supply chain, and healthcare workflows. In many cases, this is the same work that humanoid robots are jockeying for.

Brad Porter, a former distinguished engineer and vice president of robotics at Amazon, founded Collaborative Robotics in 2022. The Cobot team includes robotics and artificial intelligence experts from Amazon, Apple, Meta, Google, Microsoft, NASA, Waymo, and more.

“Getting our first robots in the field earlier this year, coupled with today’s investment, are major milestones as we bring cobots with human-level capability into the industries of today,” stated Porter. “We see a virtuous cycle, where more robots in the field lead to improved AI and a more cost-effective supply chain. This funding will help us accelerate getting more robots into the real world.”

The Robot Report caught up with Porter to learn more about the company and its product since our last conversation in July 2023, when Cobot raised its $30 million Series A.

Nothing to see here

Collaborative Robotics has been secretive about the design of its robot. You won’t find any photos of the cobot on the company’s site or anywhere else on the Web yet.

However, Porter told The Robot Report that it is already in trials with several pilot customers, including a global logistics company. He described the machine as a mobile manipulator, with roughly the stature of a human. However, it’s not a humanoid, nor does it have a six degree-of-freedom arm or a hand with fingers.

“When talking about general-purpose robots versus special-purpose robots, we know what humanoids look like, but with a new morphology, we want to protect it for a while,” he said. “We’ve been looking at humanoids for a long time, but in manufacturing, secondary material flow is designed around humans and carts. Hospitals, airports, and stadiums are usually designed around people flow. A huge amount of people is still moving boxes, totes, and carts around the world.”

The new cobot’s base is capable of omnidirectional motion with four wheels and a swerve-drive design, along with a central structure that can acquire, carry, and place totes and boxes around the warehouse. It is just under 6 ft. (2 m) tall and can carry up to 75 lb. (34 kg), said Porter.

The robot can also engage and move existing carts with payloads weighing up to 1,500 lb. (680 kg) around the warehouse. How the robot engages carts remains part of the mystery. But by automating long-distance moves and using existing cart infrastructure, Porter said he believes that the Collaborative Robotics system is differentiated from both mobile robot platforms and humanoid competitors.

“We looked at use cases for humanoids at Amazon, but you don’t actually want the complexity of a humanoid; you want something that’s stable and could move faster than people,” Porter added. “There are orders of magnitude more mobile robots than humanoids in day-to-day use, and at $300,000 to $600,000 per robot, the capital to build the first 10 humanoids is very high. We want to get robots into the field faster.”

Collaborative Robotics has kept its actual robot out of public view. | Source: Adobe Stock image Photoshopped by The Robot Report

Robots must be trustworthy

Porter said that he “believes that robots need to be trustworthy, in addition to being safe. This philosophy is driving the design and user-interface decisions that the company has made so far. Users need to understand what the robot should do by looking at it, unlike some of the existing designs of mobile robots currently on the market.”

In addition to a human-centered design approach, Collaborative Robotics is using off-the-shelf parts to reduce the robot bill of materials cost and simplify the supply chain as it begins the process of commercialization. It is also taking a “building-block” approach to hardware and plans to adjust software and machine learning for navigation and learning new tasks.

“The robot we’ve designed is 70% off-the-shelf parts, and we can design around existing motors, while every humanoid company is hand-winding its own motors to find advanced actuation capabilities,” Porter noted. “We designed the system digitally, so we don’t have to hand-tweak a bunch of things. By using 3D lidar, we know the state of the art of the technology, and it’s easier to safety-qualify.”

With large language models (LLMs), Porter said he sees the day when someone in a hospital or another facility can just tell a robot to go away. “It’s about user interaction rather than just safety, which is table stakes,” he said. “We think a lot about trustworthiness.”

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Collaborative Robotics preps for commercialization

General Catalyst led Collaborative Robotics’ Series B round, with participation from Bison Ventures, Lux Capital, and Industry Ventures. Existing investors Sequoia Capital, Khosla Ventures, Mayo Clinic, Neo, 1984 Ventures, MVP Ventures, and Calibrate Ventures also participated.

Since its founding in 2022, Cobot said it has raised more than $140 million. The company plans to grow its headcount from 35, adding production, sales, and support staffers.

In addition, Collaborative Robotics announced that Teresa Carlson will be joining it as an advisor on go to market at scale and industry transformation. She held leadership roles at Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Splunk, and Flexport.

“I’m super-excited to be working with Teresa,” said Porter. “We’ve kept up since Amazon, and she thinks a lot about digital transformation at a very large scale — federal government and industry. She brings a wealth of knowledge about economics that will elevate the scope of what we’re doing.”

Paul Kwan, managing director at General Catalyst, is joining Alfred Lin from Sequoia on Collaborative Robotics’ board of directors. 

“In our view, Brad and Cobot are spearheading the future of human-robot interaction,” said Kwan. “We believe the Cobot team is world-class at building the necessary hardware, software, and institutional trust to achieve their vision.”

Editor’s note: Eugene Demaitre contributed to this article.

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Manufacturers are under pressure to take on a digital transformation that will add flexibility on the plant floor while increasing productivity. Key drivers of this technology step change include the need to reduce operating expenses and improve efficiency, all while facing a skills shortage and a lack of visibility across the supply chain.

Recognizing this critical time for manufacturers, Design World — the essential resource for engineers and manufacturing executives, and The Robot Report‘s sister site — is launching the Digital Transformation Forum on May 1-2, 2024, at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.

This can’t-miss event will delve deeper into technology integration for manufacturing, discussing not just the “why” but also the “how” of digital transformation. It will highlight case studies of successful digital deployments, focusing on strategies that enhance operational efficiency and market competitiveness.

Digital Transformation Forum to share expert advice

The opening keynote speaker is industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) expert Walker Reynolds, a solutions architect and founder of Intellic Integration. Reynolds will outline the critical first steps required to navigate manufacturing’s digital frontier.

Day 2 keynote speakers feature Anthony DeTullio, a reliability engineer at Sikorsky Lockheed Martin, and Chris Gilman, industrial transformation program manager at Strategic Maintenance Solutions. The two will discuss adaptive artificial intelligence for machine data. Together, they built a machine learning tool that automates the process of setting thresholds for industrial metric data to ensure users receive the right information at the right time.

Other sessions will explore various aspects of digital transformation in manufacturing, including the role of AI in predictive maintenance, the integration of IoT for real-time data analysis, and the impact of cloud computing on product development and supply chain management. Interactive sessions will focus on understanding the risks and rewards of digital transformation, addressing cybersecurity concerns, and evaluating the return on their digital investments.

Attendees will also have the opportunity to network with peers, share experiences, and learn from the successes and failures of others already on a digital transformation journey.

This comprehensive agenda aims to equip participants with a holistic understanding of digital transformation in the manufacturing sector, preparing them to navigate the complexities and seize the real opportunities in this new digital era.

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Attend with an all-inclusive package

Registration is now open, and discounts are available for academia, associations, and corporate groups. The Digital Transformation Forum will be co-located with two renowned events: the Robotics Summit & Expo and DeviceTalks Boston.

The Robotics Summit & Expo is the world’s leading robotics development event, providing engineers with the information they need to successfully develop the next generation of commercial robots. DeviceTalks is the premier industry event for medical technology professionals and attracts engineering and business professionals from a broad range of healthcare and medical technology backgrounds.

Attendees of the Digital Transformation Forum will have access to both events and the combined exhibit floor. More than 100 exhibitors will showcase live demonstrations and emerging technologies pegged to revolutionize industries.

To learn more and register, visit digitaltransformationforum.com.

Editor’s Note: This article was syndicated from The Robot Report’s sister site Engineering.com. 

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Sewing machines were controlled via ROS to synchronized apparel operation with a robot. | Source: ARM Institute

A staggering 97% of the apparel sold and worn in the U.S. is made overseas, according to the American Apparel & Footwear Association. Not only does this mean that the U.S. lost these jobs when apparel manufacturing moved overseas, but it poses a significant risk to our national security, as evidenced by the nation’s struggle to manufacture and obtain personal protective equipment (PPE) at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

PPE was rationed for medical professionals in 2020, but even that wasn’t enough. Images went viral of doctors and nurses fashioning their own masks or re-wearing dirty PPE.

Though the pandemic images of PPE scarcity may have faded from recent memory, the security risk remains. Our nation’s inability to produce PPE has implications for natural disasters. In addition, the lack of onshore apparel manufacturing limits our ability to manufacture military uniforms, tents, parachutes, and other supplies needed to support the U.S. military.

Beyond national security, losing the apparel industry to offshore manufacturing also became a lost business opportunity. According to a Manufacturing Perception Report from the Thomas Network, 61% of Americans surveyed claimed they’re more likely to buy products if they are labeled as being made in the U.S. That’s a significant opportunity, particularly when you’re looking at a trillion-dollar industry.

So, what now? How do we begin to re-shore such a massive industry that has now long since been lost to competing nations? The ARM Institute and its members said they believe that the key lies within robotics and automation.

Robotics as an enabler for reshoring

Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the ARM Institute and its member organizations recognized that robotics and AI could be the key to reshoring this industry. Once it realized the need, the institute began funding projects centered on automating the more manual and tedious aspects of apparel manufacturing.

However, this was no small feat. To start, when the industry has looked at automation in the past, it was unable to overcome the difficulties in getting robots to manipulate and handle pliable materials. The ARM Institute-funded Robotic Assembly of Garments Project led by Siemens Technology with Bluewater Defense, Sewbo, and the University of California at Berkeley took an important step in overcoming this barrier.

This project developed a new robotic assembly process that stiffens garment pieces by laminating its fabric with water-soluble thermoplastic polymer, allowing the robot to handle the previously limp fabric. It then developed a flexible robotic system to assemble fabric pieces into garments.

Traditional sewing machines were controlled via the Robot Operating System (ROS) to synchronize operation with the robot. The polymer used in the stiffening process is easily removed through washing and can be recycled for multiple process cycles.

Development didn’t stop there. While the garments project took a huge step towards proving the viability of robotics in clothing manufacturing, it had a higher cycle time than current manual processes.

More ARM Institute projects

This project led to other development. Subsequent projects took lessons from prior ones and improved processes, further demonstrating not only the viability for using robotics for apparel manufacturing, but also the importance of doing so.

More ARM Institute projects centered on robotic sewing have included:

• “Bot Couture” Robotic Clothing Manufacturing
• Development of a Cost-Effective Robotic Sewing System
• Built-By-Bot: Customized Mask Assembly using Robots
• Rapid PPE Production through Automation & Robotics (RAPPAR)
• Automated Bottom Hemming Through Robotic Garment Manipulation

The U.S Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) funded the Rapid-Response Automated PPE Production in Shipping Containers project through an American Rescue Act Grant. This enabled the ARM Institute to work with fellow Manufacturing USA Institute AFFOA (Advanced Functional Fabrics of America) and several of its members to scale their projects and use in-house engineering expertise.

Work on this project is under way toward the creation of shipping containers housing robotic production that can easily be deployed where and when PPE is needed.

Momentum for apparel automation continues

While these projects have catalyzed the foundational robotics advancements needed to make apparel manufacturing safer and more productive, continued collaboration between industry, government, and academia is needed to build on this momentum.

The ARM Institute is dedicated to making this possible. The Manufacturing of Garments and Other Textile Goods will be included as a special topic area in the ARM Institute’s upcoming Technology Project Call.

Beyond impact for consumer goods and national security, reshoring apparel manufacturing also represents opportunity for the U.S. workforce. While offshore operations today depend on manual, ergonomically unfriendly processes in cramped, often dirty settings, the use of robots will make roles in these factories safer, more engaging, and higher-paying.

While robots take on the dull, dirty, and dangerous tasks, human labor can be freed up to work on operating robots and planning robotics integration. Many of these roles will be available through flexible, low-cost training. These are roles that don’t currently exist in the U.S., resulting in increased employment opportunities for U.S. workers.

The ability to re-shore apparel manufacturing is well within reach, and the ARM Institute is dedicated to working with its members to lead this effort through robotics innovations.

Editor’s notes: This article was syndicated from The Robot Report‘s sibling site Engineering.com.

Dr. Larry Sweet, director of engineering at the ARM Institute, will present a session on “Delivering AI and Machine Learning Enabled Robotics to the Manufacturing and Field Service Operations” at the Robotics Summit & Expo. It will be at 2:45 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, May 1, at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.

Sweet will share updates on current ARM Institute projects, technical approaches, best practices, and lessons learned. He will also describe steps to make advanced technology more accessible to manufacturers of all sizes and to facilitate the work of systems integrators. Register now for the event.

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

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NEURA has developed cognitive robots in a variety of form factors. Source: NEURA Robotics

Talk about combining robotics and artificial intelligence is all the rage, but some convergence is already maturing. NEURA Robotics GmbH and Omron Robotics and Safety Technologies Inc. today announced a strategic partnership to introduce “cognitive robotics” into manufacturing.

“By pooling our sensor and AI technologies and expertise into an ultimate platform approach, we will significantly shape the future of the manufacturing industry and set new standards,” stated David Reger, founder and CEO of NEURA Robotics.

Reger founded the company in 2019 with the intention of combining sensors and AI with robotics components for a platform for app development similar to that of smartphones. The “NEURAverse” offers flexibility and cost efficiency in automation, according to the company.

“Unlike traditional industrial robots, cognitive robots have the ability to learn from their environment, make decisions autonomously, and adapt to dynamic production scenarios,” said Metzingen, Germany-based NEURA. “This opens new application possibilities including intricate assembly tasks, detailed quality inspections, and adaptive material handling processes.”

Omron has sensor, channel expertise

“We see NEURA’s cognitive technologies as a compelling growth opportunity for industrial robotics,” added Olivier Welker, president and CEO of Omron Robotics and Safety Technologies. “By combining NEURA’s innovative solutions with Omron’s global reach and automation portfolio, we will provide customers new ways to increase safety, productivity, and flexibility in their operations.”

Pleasanton, Calif.-based Omron Robotics is a subsidiary of OMRON Corp. focusing on automation and safety sensing. It designs and manufactures industrial, collaborative, and mobile robots for various industries.

“We’ve known Omron for quite some time, and even before I started NEURA, we had talked about collaborating,” Reger told The Robot Report. “They’ve tested our products, and we’ve worked together on how to benefit both sides.”

“We have the cognitive platform, and they’re one of the biggest sensor, controllers, and safety systems providers,” he added. “This collaboration will integrate our cognitive abilities and NEURAverse with their sensors for a plug-and-play solution, which everyone is working toward.”

Omron Robotics’ Olivier Welker and NEURA’s David Reger celebrate their partnership. Source: NEURA

Collaboration has ‘no limits’

When asked whether NEURA and Omron Robotics’ partnership is mainly focused on market access, Reger replied, “It’s not just the sales channel … there are no really big limits. From both sides, there will be add-ons.”

Rather than see each other as competitors, NEURA and Omron Robotics are working to make robots easier to use, he explained.

“As a billion-dollar company, it could have told our startup what it wanted, but Omron is different,” said Reger. “I felt we got a lot of respect from Olivier and everyone in that organization. It won’t be a one-sided thing; it will be just ‘Let’s help each other do something great.’ That’s what we’re feeling every day since we’ve been working together. Now we can start talking about it.”

NEURA has also been looking at mobile manipulation and humanoid robots, but adding capabilities to industrial automation is the “low-hanging fruit, where small changes can have a huge effect,” said Reger. “A lot of things for humanoids have not yet been solved.”

“I would love to just work on household robots, but the best way to get there is to use the synergy between industrial robotics and the household market,” he noted. “Our MAiRA, for example, is a cognitive robot able to scan an environment and from an idle state pick any known or unknown objects.”

MAiRA cognitive robot on MAV mobile base. Source: NEURA Robotics

Ease of use drives NEURA strategy

NEURA and Omron Robotics promise to make robots easier to use, helping overall adoption, Reger said.

“A big warehouse company out of the U.S. is claiming that it’s already using more than 1 million robots, but at the same time, I’m sure they’d love to use many more robots,” he said. “It’s also in the transformation from a niche market into a mass market. We see that’s currently only possible if you somehow control the environment.”

“It’s not just putting all the sensors inside the robot, which we were first to do, and saying, ‘OK, now we’re able to interact with a human and also pick objects,'” said Reger. “Imagine there are external sensors, but how do you calibrate them? To make everything plug and play, you need new interfaces, which means collaboration with big players like Omron that provide a lot of sensors for the automation market.”

NEURA has developed its own sensors and explored the balance of putting processing in the cloud versus the edge. To make its platform as popular with developers as that of Apple, however, the company needs the support of partners like Omron, he said.

Reger also mentioned NEURA’s partnership with Kawasaki, announced last year, in which Kawasaki offers the LARA CL series cobot with its portfolio. “Both collaborations are incredibly important for NEURA and will soon make sense to everyone,” he said.

NEURA to be at Robotics Summit & Expo

Reger will be presenting a session on “Developing Cognitive Robotics Systems” at 2:45 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, May 1, Day 1 of the Robotics Summit & Expo. The event will be at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, and registration is now open.

“I’ll be talking about making robots cognitive to enable AI to be useful to humanity instead of competing with us,” he said. “AI is making great steps, but if you look at what it’s doing, like drawing pictures or writing stories — these are things that I’d love to do but don’t have the time for. But if I ask, let’s say, AI to take out the garbage or show it a picture of garbage, it can tell me how to do it, but it’s simply not able to do something about it yet.”

NEURA is watching humanoid development but is focusing on integrating cognitive robotics with sensing and wearables as it expands in the U.S., said Reger. The company is planning for facilities in Detroit, Boston, and elsewhere, and it is looking for leadership team members as well as application developers and engineers.

“We don’t just want a sales office, but also production in the U.S.,” he said. “We have 220 people in Germany — I just welcomed 15 new people who joined NEURA — and are starting to build our U.S. team. In the past several months, we’ve gone with only European and American investors, and we’re looking at the Japanese market. The U.S. is now open to innovation, and it’s an exciting time for us to come.”

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

The post NEURA and Omron Robotics partner to offer cognitive factory automation appeared first on The Robot Report.

SwRI Workbench for Offline Robotics Development allows manufacturing engineers to independently use complex robotics and simplifies motion planning for seasoned developers. Source: Southwest Research Institute

An industry push for more automation is advancing the Robot Operating System, or ROS, beyond the academic and manufacturing domains into agriculture, automotive, retail, healthcare and more. Various forecasts project that the open-source advanced robotics market will grow more than 10% annually between 2024 and 2029.

These trends are motivating for robotics engineers at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and our colleagues at the ROS-Industrial Consortium and supporting industries. We also recognize that the usability of robotics software is still an impediment to even higher levels of adoption.

Over the years, the ROS-I Consortium has held frequent roadmapping sessions with a wide variety of end users and ROS developers to address ease of use and continuing education. The identified need is a lower barrier of entry for non-programmers (or entry-level developers) to harness the power of tools in the ROS ecosystem, but in a way that aligns with industry adoption of digital thread and Industry 4.0 strategies.

The traditional ROS workflow is software programming-intense, requiring developers deeply familiar with available ROS libraries and tools. Even experienced developers within the ROS-I ecosystem and beyond may spend significant time — days to weeks — on the initial setup and configuration of a ROS application.

Listening to the voice of our own developers, our diverse stakeholders, and consortium members, we heard the need for easier access to the ROS motion-planning tools, while maintaining a tie back to the CAD ecosystem where the products to be worked on are conceived and maintained.

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

SWORD is a graphical toolkit for robotics developers

The Southwest Research Institute is launching the SwRI Workbench for Offline Robotics Development (SWORD) featuring a graphical toolkit for developing and testing advanced robotic motion-planning applications.

SWORD is implemented as a plugin to the open-source FreeCAD application, allowing users to integrate robotics capabilities into a cross-platform CAD environment. It provides a graphical interface to many powerful motion-planning libraries.

The goal is to bring ROS to a manufacturing/industrial audience in a way that is more approachable and resides in an environment that is familiar. Most manufacturing engineers are competent with CAD and understand their processes, often doing various forms of programs on process-oriented systems.

SWORD seeks to bring advanced motion-planning capability to this audience enabling to set up their systems and take advantage of these more advanced tools in their operational environments. Through the first Beta test, the team at SwRI has collected feedback from end users and is nearing the release the first version of SWORD. SWORD currently offers the capabilities below:

Environment modeling

• Create workcell model (robot, fixtures, end-of-arm tooling); see Figure 1 below.

  • Use CAD modeling tools or import existing CAD/mesh models

  • Use Convex Hull and Decomposition tools to generate collision geometry

• Import and export URDF (Unified Robotics Description Format) files

• Manipulate robot position

  • Joint Sliders to control individual joint positions

  • TCP Dragger to simulate movement using various IK solver

Figure 1: An example of URDF creation and evaluation in SWORD. Click here to enlarge. Source: Southwest Research Institute

Command language

• Define robot motion using either Cartesian or Joint waypoints

  • Currently waypoints must be manually defined, but import and CAD-generated waypoints are planned for an upcoming release.

• Specify different move segment types (joint/cartesian) and motion groups

• Insert supplementary commands (I/O, delays, etc.)

Motion planning

• Generate motion plan using a variety of Tesseract-supported path planners

  • Currently uses default Profiles (configuration) for each planner, but profile editing is planned for an upcoming release.

• Create custom planning pipelines for application-specific behavior; see Figure 2 below.

• Compute the Allowed Collision Matrix

  • Currently no way to review or adjust the results, but this functionality is planned for an upcoming release.

• Review computed motion trajectory

SWORD is officially released, and seats are available. You can request a trial version to understand if it is right for your organization. If you are interested in a trial license, or want to learn more or get a guided tour from SwRI, please contact Jeremy Zoss or Matt Robinson.

Figure 2: Setting up a motion planning pipeline for testing and evaluation in SWORD. Click here to enlarge. Source: Southwest Research Institute

About the author and the Southwest Research Institute

Matthew Robinson is program manager for ROS-Industrial Consortium Americas at the Southwest Research Institute. He was previously research team leader and a graduate fellow at the Edison Welding Institute. Robinson has participated in RoboBusiness Direct and has an M.S.W.E. from The Ohio State University.

Since 1947, the nonprofit SwRI in San Antonio, Texas, has taken a multidisciplinary approach to research and development for government and industry clients.

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