The future of the robotics industry is in good hands. Meet 10-year-old Michael Wimmer, a robotics prodigy who lives just outside Charlotte, North Carolina. We caught up with Wimmer at the Robotics Summit & Expo 2019
If you don’t know Wimmer, the video above offers a chance to learn a little about him. What an impressive young man. He’s been a member of Mensa since he was four years old, and he’s going into his junior year of high school.
Not exactly what I was doing when I was 10.
Wimmer taught himself most all of his programming and robotic knowledge through trial and error and online videos. Some of his work includes building a machine learning model that could detect various toy cars. As you can see in the video below, Wimmer increased the difficulty of the challenge by testing the machine learning model only on red cars while he was wearing a red shirt. The video has been viewed nearly 170,000 times on Wimmer’s LinkedIn page, which is run by his parents.
He also developed a semi-autonomous RC Corvette using a Raspberry Pi 3 and Python coding. The car includes three modes: manual drive mode, lane keep mode and front crash avoidance mode. Wimmer said he did all the coding, from the driving and steering to sensor input and output responses. His next modification to the car will be a front camera for real-time machine learning. Check it out:
Of course, Wimmer has other hobbies besides robotics, including a passion for auto racing. For more about Wimmer, here’s a great profile by the Salisbury Post of Wimmer from November 2018. For all the robotics companies out there struggling to find employees, keep an eye on Wimmer.
The Robot Operating System is becoming the standard in robotics, not only for robotics research, but also for robotics companies that build and sell robots. In this article, I offer a list of the top 10 robotics companies worldwide that base their robotics products on ROS.
Criteria
This is the list of criteria I followed to select the winners:
We are talking about roboticscompanies that build robots. This is not about companies that produce some kind of software based in ROS, but companies that create and ship robots based in ROS. We do not consider companies that do consulting and generate solutions for a third party, either.
They have created the robots themselves. This means they are not resellers or distributors of robots made by somebody else.
They have their robots natively running ROS. This means, you switch the robot on, and it is running ROS. We are not taking into account robots that support ROS — if you install the packages. We concentrate on robots that run ROS off the shelf. For example, you can run ROS on a UR5 arm robot, but if you buy the UR5 robot, it will not come with ROS support off the shelf. You need to add an extra layer of work. We are not considering those robots.
You can program the robots. Even if some companies provide ROS-based robots — such as Locus Robotics — they do not provide a way to program them. They provide the robots as a closed solution. We are not considering closed solutions here.
To summarize the criteria: 1. You can buy the robot directly from the company; 2. The robot runs ROS from Minute 1; and 3. You can program the robot at will.
Once the companies were selected based on the previous criteria, I had to decide the order. Order was based on my personal perception of the impact those companies are making in the ROS world. That is very subjective to my own experience, I know, but that is what it is. Whenever I felt it necessary, I described my motivation behind the position of the company on the list.
Now, having clarified all that, let’s go to the list!
Clearpath is a Canadian company founded in 2009. The number of robots that it produces in the fields of unmanned ground vehicles, unmanned surface vehicles (on the water), and industrial vehicles is amazing. The company’s robots are based on ROS and can be programmed with ROS from Minute 1. That is why these robots are used in the creation of third-party applications for mining, survey, inspection, agriculture, and material handling.
Some of Clearpath’s best-known robots include Jackal UGV, which you can learn how to program. Others include the Husky UGV, Heron USV, and its recently launched series of Otto robots for industrial environments.
As a matter of trustability, this company took the responsibility to provide the customer support to the existing PR2 robots, once Willow Garage closed its doors. Because of that, and because it is the company with the most varied ROS robots available, I put it in the well-deserved No. 1 spot on this list.
Fetch Robotics was founded by Melonee Wise in 2014, after she was forced to close her previous pioneer company, Unbounded Robotics. We can say that Fetch has two lines of business. First is its line of mobile manipulators, which are mainly used for robotics research.
Then, Fetch has a line of industrial robots which it sells in fleets ready to be deployed in a warehouse to help with the transport of materials. As I understand it, the first line of business is the only one that allows direct ROS programming, and the second one is a closed product.
I did not select Fetch for No. 2 because of its research line only. I selected it for this spot because Fetch was a pioneer in the creation of affordable mobile manipulators with its Fetch robot (paired with the Freight mobile platform). Up to the moment it released Fetch, there was no ROS-based mobile manipulator on the market. (Sorry, Turtlebot 2 with a Dynamixel arm doesn’t count as a mobile manipulator.)
Recently, Fetch organized the FetchIt! challenge at ICRA 2019. (My company, The Construct, was a partner contributing to the event’s simulation.) At that event, participants had to program their Fetch to produce some pieces in a manufacturing room. You can check the results here.
Even if Fetch Robotics only produces two robots meeting the criteria above, it was the pioneer that opened the field of ROS-based mobile manipulators. That is why it deserves the No. 2 spot on this list.
Pal Robotics is based in Barcelona and was created in 2004. I especially love Pal because I worked there for more than seven years, and many of my friends are there. But love is not the reason I put them in the third position.
Pal Robotics earned No. 3 because it’s the only company in the world that builds and sells human-size humanoid robots. And not just a single type of humanoid, but three different types! The Reem robot, Reem-C robot, and recently, the TALOS robot.
Pal also produces mobile manipulators similar to the Fetch ones. They are called Tiago, and you can buy them for your research or applications on top. (If you’re interested, you can learn how to program Tiago robots with ROS in an online course that The Construct created in collaboration with Pal Robotics.)
We have recently released a simulation of TALOS, including its walking controllers. You can get it here.
Robotnik is another Spanish company, based in Castellon and founded in 2002. I call it “the Spanish Clearpath.” Really, it has built as many ROS robots as the first company on this list. Robotnik creates and designs mobile manipulators, unmanned ground vehicles of different types, and many types of mobile robots for industrial applications and logistics.
The company is also expert in personalizing your robot by integrating third-party robotics parts into a final ROS-based robot that meets your requirements.
Finally, Robotnik’s team includes the people behind the ROS Components online shop, where you can buy components for your robots that are certified to be ROS supported off the shelf. For all this extensive activity in selling ROS robots, Robotnik deserves the fourth position on this list.
A couple of months ago, Robotnik sent us one of its Summit XL robots for experimenting and creating ROS training materials. We used it extensively for our ROS Live Classes, showing how to program Robotinik robots using a cloud robotics platform.
Yujin is a Korean company specializing in vacuum cleaning robots. However, those robots are not the reason they are on this list, since they do not run ROS onboard. Instead, Yujin is here because it’s the official seller of the Kobuki robot, that is, the base system of the Turtlebot 2 robot.
The Turtlebot 2 is the most famous ROS robot in the world, even more so than the PR2! Almost every one of us has learned with that robot, either in simulation or in reality. Due to its low cost, it allows you to easily enter into the ROS world.
If you have bought a Turtlebot 2 robot, it is very likely that the base was made by Yujin. We used Kobuki as the base of our robot Barista, and I use several of them at my ROS class at La Salle University.
Additionally, Yujin has developed another ROS robot for logistics that is called GoCart, a very interesting robot for logistics inside buildings (but not warehouses). The robot can be used to send packages from one location in the building to another — including elevators on the path.
This is another Korean company that is making it big in the ROS world. Even if Robotis is well known for its Dynamixel servos, it’s best known in the ROS world because of its Turtlebot 3 robot and Open manipulator, both presented as the next generation of the Turtlebot series.
With the development of the Turtlebot 3, Robotis brought the Turtlebot concept to another level, allowing people easier entry into ROS. The manipulator is also very well integrated with the Turtlebot 3, so you can have a complete mobile manipulator for a few hundred dollars.
Even easier, the company has made all the designs of both robots open-source, so you can build the robots yourself. Here are the designs of Turtlebot 3. Here are the designs of Open Manipulator.
Shadow Robot is based in London. This company is a pioneer in the development of humanoid robotic hands. To my knowledge, Shadow Robot is the only company in the world that sells that kind of robotic hand.
Furthermore, its hands are ROS-programmable off the shelf. Apart from hands, Shadow Robot also produces many other types of grippers, which can be mounted on robotic arms to create complete grasping solutions.
Husarion is a Polish company founded in 2013. It sells simple and compact autonomous mobile robots called ROSbots. They are small, four-wheeled robots equipped with a lidar, camera, and a point cloud device. These robots are perfect for learning ROS with a real robot, or for doing research and learning with a more compact robot than the Turtlebot 2.
Husarion also produces the Panther robot, which is more oriented to outdoor environments, but with the same purpose of research and learning.
What makes Husarion different from other companies selling ROS robots is the compactness of its robots and its creation of the Husarnet network, which connects the robots through the cloud and has remote control over them.
Neobotix is a manufacturer of mobile robots and robot systems in general. It provides robots and manipulators for a wide range of industrial applications, especially in the sector of transporting material.
Neobotix is a spin-off of the Fraunhofer Institute in Stuttgart, and it created the famous Care-O-Bot, used many times in the Robocup@Home competitions. However, as far as I know, the Care-O-Bot never reached the point of product, even if you can order five of them and get them delivered, running immediately after unpacking.
At present, Neobotix is focusing on selling mobile bases, which can be customized with robotics arms, converting the whole system in a custom mobile manipulator.
The company also sells the mobile bases and the manipulators separately. Examples of mobile bases include Neobotix’s MP series of robots. On the mobile manipulator side, it sells the MM series. All of them work off-the-shelf with ROS.
Even if Neobotix’s products are full products on their own, I see them more as components that we can use for building more complex robots, allowing us to save time creating all the parts. That is why I have decided to put it in the ninth position and not above the other products.
Gaitech is a Chinese company that is mainly dedicated to distributing ROS robots, and ROS products in general, in China. from third-party companies. They include many of the companies on this list, including Fetch, Pal, and Robotnik.
However, Gaitech has also developed its own line of robots. For example, the Gapter drone is the only drone I’m aware of that works with ROS off the shelf.
Even if Gaitech’s robots are not very popular in the ROS circuit, I have included them it because at present, it’s the only company in the world that is building ROS–based drones. (Erle Robotics did ROS-based drones in the past, but as far as I know, that ceased when it switched to Acutronic Robotics.) Due to this lack of competition, I think Gaitech deserves the No. 10 position.
The following is a shortlist of other companies building ROS robots that did not make it onto the list for certain reasons. They may be here next year!
1. Sony
Sony is a complete newcomer to the world of ROS robots, but it has entered through the big door. Last year, it announced the release of the Aibo robot dog, which fully works on ROS. That was a big surprise to all of us, especially since Sony abandoned the Aibo project back in 2005.
Sony’s revived robot dog could have put it on the list above, except for the fact that the robot is still too new and can only be bought in the U.S. and Japan. Furthermore, the robot still has a very limited programming SDK, so you can barely program it.
If you are interested in the inner workings of Aibo with ROS, have a look at the presentation by Tomoya Fujita, one of the engineers of the project, during the ROS Developers Conference 2019, where he explained the communication mechanism between processes that they had to develop for ROS in order to reduce battery consumption in Aibo. Amazing stuff, fully compatible with ROS nodes and using the standard communication protocol!
This is a company based on selling simple mobile bases based on ROS for the development of third-party solutions, or as it calls them, “robot applications.” Ubiquity Robotics’ goal is to provide a solid mobile base with off-the-shelf navigation on top of which you can build other solutions like telepresence, robotic waiters, and so on.
Ubiquity Robotics is a young company with a good idea in mind, but it’s very close to existing solutions like Neobotix or Robotnik. Let’s see next year how they have evolved.
This company started building ROS-based drones, but recently, they changed direction to produce hardware ROS microchips. Acutronic produces the MARA robot, an industrial arm based on ROS2 on the H-ROS microchips.
However, as far as I know, the MARA robot is not Acutronics’ main business, since the company created it and sells it as an example of what can be done with H-ROS. That is why I decided not to include this company in the main top 10 list.
By the way, we also collaborated with Acutronic to create a series of videos about how to learn ROS2 using their MARA robot.
Most of the ROS-based robotics companies are based on wheeled robots. A few exceptions are the humanoid robots of Pal Robotics, the drones of Gaitech, the robotic hands from Shadow Robots, and the robot arms from Neobotix.
It’s very interesting that we see almost no drones and no robotic arms running ROS off the shelf, since both of them are very basic types of robots. There are many robotic arm companies that provide ROS drivers for their robots and many packages for their control, like Universal Robots or Kinova.
But of the listed companies, only Neobotix actually provides an off-the-shelf arm robot with its MM series. I think there is a lot of market space for new ROS-based drones and robotic arms. Take note of that, entrepreneurs of the world!
Finally, I would like to acknowledge that I do not know all the ROS companies out there. Even if I have done my research to create this article, I may have missed some companies worth mentioning. Let me know if you know of or have a company that sells ROS robots and should be on this list, so I can update it and correct any mistakes.
About the author
Ricardo Tellez is co-founder and CEO of The Construct. Prior to this role, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Robotics Institute of the Spanish Research Council. Tellez worked for more than seven years at Pal Robotics developing humanoid robots, including its navigation system and reasoning engine. He holds a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence and aims to create robots that really understand what they are doing. Tellez spoke at the 2019 Robotics Summit & Expo in Boston.
RobotUnion, which claims to be the first pan-European acceleration program fully focused on robotics, announced the winners of its second open call for robotics startups. The winners of up to €223,000 ($250,000 U.S.) in equity-free funding each were announced earlier this month.
The jury consisted of investors such as Fundingbox and Chrysalix Venture Capital, as well as technical experts from institutes such as the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, the Danish Technological Institute, and TU Delft (from the Netherlands).
In addition to the funding, mentors from Google, Airbnb, Ikea, Yahoo, Microsoft and other companies will be made available. Ten startups will gain access to technical support from European robotics experts and business-acceleration services.
The robotics startups selected by RobotUnion are now participating in a 14-month acceleration process. In the initial two-month feasibility phase, the startups must define a plan specifying the technical and market potential of their robotics systems. They will present these plans at a Welcome Camp in Odense, Denmark, on Oct. 2 and 3, 2019.
Below, in alphabetical order, are 15 of the European robotics startups selected by RobotUnion. Several startups were excluded from this recap, including additive manufacturing companies and manufacturing companies that use robots, as they don’t fit The Robot Report‘s definition of a robotics company. Check out the full list here.
Aether Biomedical, a Poland-based startup founded in 2016, is developing Zeus is a low-cost, high-efficacy prosthesis. This bionic limb has 14 grip modes, five individually motorized articulating digits, closed loop motor control to sense finger position and applied force for proportional control and much more. Zeus uses EMG electrodes for advanced signal processing and to provide wireless gain adjustment. The sensitivity and smoothness of the signal can also be manipulated.
Automato Robotics
Founded in 2018, Tel Aviv, Israel-based Automato Robotics is developing a robot for harvesting fresh tomatoes, primarily in passive greenhouses. The company says its “focus is on single (not vine) tomatoes, grown in soil greenhouses/high-tunnels. The robot, which you can watch in the video above, can currently carry 90kg directly on the robot or tow much heavier loads.
Axiles Bionics
Belgium-based Axiles Bionics is developing the AMP-Foot, a prosthetic ankle-foot prosthesis. The company says the prosthesis is capable of bringing back a natural gait and posture during daily life activities, being flexible and highly responsive to the person’s intention and to the environment.
Cyber Surgery
Cyber Surgery develops a robotic system for spinal procedures. Founded in 2017, Cyber Surgery is a spin-off from the industrial group Egile and has its headquarters in San Sebastian (Spain).
Formhand
Formhand is a German company founded in 2018 that makes granulate-based vacuum grippers that can adapt to and handle objects with different shapes. The Formhand grippers feature a modular design that the company says makes it easy to scale the technology.
IM Systems
IM Systems (IMS), which spoke at the Robotics Summit & Expo 2019 (produced by The Robot Report), is developing the Archimedes drive, a planetary transmission that uses friction instead of gear teeth to transmit torque. Founded in 2016 in Delft, The Netherlands, IMS won Automate’s Launch Pad Startup Competition.
Invented by IMS founder and CEO Jack Schorsch, the company claims the Archimedes Drive offers low-input friction, minimal backlash and ratios of 10,000:1. IMS is targeting the drive at robotics companies, but it could have other applications.
IntSite
Israeli startup IntSite, founded in 2017 by brothers Tzach and Mor Ram-On, is developing autonomous cranes. The company’s computer vision technology analyzes camera feeds in real time for obstacles avoidance. And its automated controls improve the cranes’ precision by as much as 30 percent.
IntSite raised a $1.35 million pre-seed round in September 2018 that was led by Terra Venture Partners and the Israel Innovation Authority.
Kinfinity
German startup Kinfinity is developing the Kinfinity Glove, a new generation of multi-modal input device for use in various applications, including robotics. In the video above from the 2018 World Robot Conference, you see the Kinfinity Glove being used to control a robotic arm.
Life Science Robotics
Danish robotics startup Life Science Robotics is building ROBERT, a rehabilitation robot focusing on active resistive and assistive mobilization of the lower extremities. The idea is to use a KUKA LBR iiwa collaborative robot arm to release healthcare workers of heavy and continuous lifting, which can cause physical strain and pain in the back, loin, wrists and shoulders.
ROBERT is also beneficial to the patients, the company says, because it can prevent soft tissue contracture and pressure sores, minimize risk of blood clots and pneumonia and reduce muscular atrophy and neuropathic effects.
LuxAI
Luxembourg-based LuxAI is developing the QTrobot, which is a proactive social robot designed to assist autism professionals in helping children with autism spectrum disorder to learn new social, emotional and communicational skills. There is a version of the QTrobot for researchers, too. The company says a home edition of QTrobot will be available for the parents soon.
Proxima Centauri
Denmark-based Proxima Centauri is automating the picking and sorting of sausage casings. The company says sausage casings need to be sorted according to their diameter to produce consistent sausages. Manual sorting is an expensive process, which resulted in the casings being shipped to low-wage countries to reduce labor costs. Automating this process, the company says, will reduce processing time and improve the traceability and quality of the product.
Rigitech
Rigitech is a Swiss startup offering improved logistics through cargo drone delivery. Its drones combine vertical takeoff and landing technology with fixed wing range capabilities. The drones can carry up to 3kg, which it says represents more than 80% of parcels shipped today, with a 4km flight range on one battery. Rigitech says its applications include e-commerce, healthcare, humanitarian efforts and more.
Robotical
UK-based Robotical is the maker of Marty the Robot, which is designed to teach kids how to code. Marty comes as a kit or pre-built. Marty is Wi-Fi enabled and has 9 individually controllable servo motors. You can use an app to remote control Marty and add a bunch of sensors to react to the environment. Marty can be programmed using Scratch, Python, Javascript and ROS.
Rovenso
Founded in 2016, Swiss company Rovenso makes an autonomous mobile robot called ROVéo for security applications. Combining 3D laser scanning, night vision, thermal vision and acoustic analysis, ROVéo uses multi-modal sensor fusion to detects the slightest anomalies. And based on patented technology, ROVéo can tackle rough terrain and climb stairs by adapting to their shape.
Scaled Robotics
Spain-based Scaled Robotics builds mobile robots that navigate construction sites to collect 3D maps. These maps are uploaded to the cloud to track the progress of a job and the quality of the construction to find potential mistakes.
RMS enables fleet management and troubleshooting. Source: Freedom Robotics
SAN FRANCISCO — Freedom Robotics Inc. today announced that it has closed a $6.6 million seed round. The company provides a cloud-based software development infrastructure for managing fleets of robots.
Freedom Robotics claimed that robotics startups can get their products to market 10 times faster by using its tools to do the “undifferentiated heavy lifting” rather than devoting employees to developing a full software stack. The company said its platform-agnostic Robotics Management Software (RMS) provides the “building blocks” for prototyping, building, operating, and scaling robot fleets.
Freedom Robotics builds RMS for developers
“We’ve seen that robotics is hard,” observed Dimitri Onistsuk, co-founder of Freedom Robotics. “In sixth grade, I wrote a letter to myself saying that I would go to MIT, drop out, and found a company that would change the world.”
Onistsuk did go to MIT, drop out, and draw on his experiences with Hans Lee and Joshua Wilson, now chief technology officer and CEO, respectively, at Freedom Robotics.
“We had been building things together before there was a cloud,” recalled Onistsuk. “Now in robotics, very few people have the ability to build a full stack.”
“We see robotics developers who have wonderful applications, like caring for the elderly; transportation; or dull, dirty, and dangerous work,” he said. “Everyone agrees on the value of this area, but they don’t realize the complexity of day-to-day iteration, which requires many engineers and a lot of infrastructure for support.”
“Robotics is like the Web in 2002, where everyone who wants to make an attempt has to raise $10 million and get expert talent in things like computer vision, mechatronics, systems integration, and ROS,” Onistsuk told The Robot Report. “It costs a lot of money to try even once to get a product to market.”
“We’ve combined layers of distinct software services by bringing modern software-development techniques into robotics, which traditionally had a hardware focus,” he said. “You can use one or many — whatever you have to do to scale.”
‘AWS for robots’
Freedom Robotics said that its cloud-based tools can be installed with just a single line of code, and its real-time visualization tools combine robotics management and analysis capabilities that were previously scattered across systems.
“Developers are always trying to improve their processes and learn new things,” said Onistsuk. “Amazon Web Services allows you to bring up a computer with a single line of code. We spent most of the first six months as a company figuring out how to do that for robots. We even bought the domain name ’90 seconds to go.'”
“You can drop in one line of code and immediately see real-time telemetry and have a cloud link to a robot from anywhere in the world,” he said. “Normally, when you want to adopt new components and are just trying to build a robot where the components talk to one another, that can take months.”
“During one on-boarding call, a customer was able to see within two minutes real-time telemetry from robots,” Onistsuk said. “They had never seen sensor-log and live-streaming data together. They thought the video was stuttering, but then an engineer noticed an error in a robot running production software. The bug had already been pushed out to customers. They never had the tools before to see all data in one place in developer-friendly ways.”
“That is the experience we’re getting when building software alongside the people who build robots,” he said. “With faster feedback loops, companies can iterate 10 times faster and move developers to other projects.”
Freedom Robotics’ RMS combines robotics tools to help developers and robotics managers. Source: Freedom Robotics
The same tools for development, management
Onistsuk said that his and Lee’s experience led them to follow standard software-development practices. “Some truths are real — for your core infrastructure, you shouldn’t have to own computers — our software is cloud-based for that reason,” he said.
“We stand on the shoulders of giants and practice what we preach,” Onistsuk asserted. “Pieces of our underlying infrastructure run on standard clouds, and we follow standard ways of building them.”
He said that not only does Freedom Robotics offer standardized development tools; it also uses them to build its RMS.
“With a little thought, for anything that you want to do with our product, you have access to the API calls across the entire fleet,” said Onistsuk. “We used the same APIs to build the product as you would use to run it.”
Resource monitoring with RMS. Source: Freedom Robotics
“We’ll soon reach a point when there are more robots than cell phones, and we’ll need the ‘Microsoft of robotics’ platform to power such a massive market,” said Garry Tan, managing partner at Initialized Capital, which has backed companies such as Instacart, Coinbase, and Cruise.
“Cloud learning will be a game-changer for robotics, allowing the experience of one robot to be ‘taught’ to the rest on the network. We’ve been looking for startups with the technology and market savvy to realize this cloud robotics future through fleet management, control, and analytics,” said Jim Adler, founding managing director at Toyota AI Ventures. “We were impressed with Freedom Robotics’ customer-first, comprehensive approach to managing and controlling fleets of robots and look forward to supporting the Freedom team as they make cloud robotics a market reality.”
“We found out about Toyota AI Ventures through its Twitter account,” said Onistsuk. “We got some referrals and went and met with them. As the founder of multiple companies, Jim [Adler] understood us in a way that industry-specific VCs couldn’t. He got our experience in robotics, building teams, and data analytics.”
What about competing robotics development platforms? “We realized from Day 1 that we shouldn’t be fighting,” Onistsuk replied. “We’re fully integrated with the cloud offerings of Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, as well as ROS. We have drop-in compatibility.”
“What we’re trying to power with that is allowing developers to build things that differentiate their products and services and win customers,” he added. “This is similar to our cloud-based strategy. We try to be hardware-agnostic. We want RMS to work out of the box with as many tools and pieces of hardware as possible so that people can try things rapidly.”
The Freedom Robotics team has raised seed funding. Source: Freedom Robotics
Hardware gets commoditized
“Hardware is getting commoditized and driving market opportunity,” said Onistsuk. “For instance, desktop compute is only $100 — not just Raspberry Pi, but x86 — you can buy a real computer running a full operating system.”
“Sensors are getting cheaper thanks to phones, and 3D printing will affect actuators. NVIDIA is putting AI into a small, low-power form factor,” he added. “With cheaper components, we’re looking for $5,000 robot arms rather than $500,000 arms, and lots of delivery companies are looking to make a vehicle autonomous and operating at a price point that’s competitive.”
“Companies can use RMS to build their next robots as a service [RaaS], and we’ve worked with everything from the largest entertainment companies to sidewalk delivery startups and multibillion-dollar delivery companies,” Onistsuk said. “Freedom Robotics is about democratizing robotics development and removing barriers to entry so that two guys in a garage can scale out to a business because of demand. The dreams of people with real needs in robotics will cause the next wave of innovation.”
“Software infrastructure is hard to do — we take what many developers consider boring so that they can sell robots into businesses or the home that get better over time,” he said.
‘Inspiring’ feedback
Customer feedback so far has been “overwhelmingly inspiring,” said Onistsuk. “The best moments are getting an e-mail from a customer saying, ‘We’re using your product, and we thought we didn’t want some login or alerting plug-in. We have a demo tomorrow, and it would take four months to build it, but you can do it.'”
“We’ve seen from our interactions that the latest generation of robotics developers has different expectations,” he said. “We’re seeing them ‘skating to where the puck is,’ iterating quickly to build tools and services around our roadmap.”
“The RMS is not just used by developers,” Onistsuk said. “Development, operations, and business teams can find and solve problems in a collaborative way with the visualization tool. We can support teams managing multiple robots with just a tablet, and it integrates with Slack.”
“We can go from high-level data down to CPU utilization,” Lee said. “With one click, you can get a replay of GPS and telemetry data and see every robot with an error. Each section is usually one engineer’s responsibility.”
“A lot of times, people develop robots for university research or an application, but how does the robot perform in the field when it’s in a ditch?” said Lee. “We can enable developers to make sure robots perform better and safer.”
Freedom Robotics is currently being used in industries including agriculture, manufacturing, logistics, and restaurants, among others.
“This is similar to getting dev done in minutes, not months, and it could speed up the entire robotics industry,” Onistsuk added. “Investors are just as excited about the team, scaling the business, and new customers as I am.”
Acutronic Robotics today announced on its blog that it is shutting down on July 31. The company, which has offices in Switzerland and Spain, offered communication tools based on the Robot Operating System for modular robot design.
The company, which was founded in 2016 after Acutronic Link Robotics AG’s acquisition of Erle Robotics, said it had been waiting on financing. Acutronic Robotics was developing the Hardware Robot Operating System or H-ROS, a communication bus to enable robot hardware to interoperate smoothly, securely, and safely.
Components of Acutronic’s technology included the H-ROS System on Module (SoM) device for the bus, ROS2 as the “universal robot language” and application programming interface, and the Hardware Robot Information Model (HRIM) as a common ROS dialect.
Acutronic was involved in the development of the open-source ROS2 and was recently named a “Top 10 ROS-based robotics company” for 2019. The company built MARA, the first robot natively running on ROS2.
In January, Acutronic Robotics said that it had made grippers from Robotiq “seamlessly interoperable with all other ROS2-speaking robotic components, regardless of their original manufacturer.”
H-ROS was intended to make robot hardware work together more easily. Source: Acutronic Robotics
Funding challenges
HRIM was funded through the EU’s ROS-Industrial (ROSIN) project, and the U.S. Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency (DARPA) had invested in H-ROS.
In September 2017, Acutronic raised an unspecified amount of Series A funding led by the Sony Innovation Fund. More recently, however, the company had difficulty finding venture capital.
“We continue to believe that our robot modularity technology and vision are relevant strategically speaking, both product and positioning wise,” stated Victor Mayoral, CEO of Acutronic Robotics. however we probably hit the market too early and fell short of resources.”
According to Acutronic’s blog post, the company received acquisition proposals but was unable to agree to any of them.
The global robot operating system market will experience a compound annual growth rate of 8.8% between 2018 and 2026, predicts Transparency Market Research. However, that forecast includes proprietary industrial software and customized robots.
Mayoral didn’t specify what would happen to Acutronic Robotics’ approximately 30 staffers or its intellectual property, but he tried to end on an optimistic note.
“We are absolutely convinced that ROS is a key blueprint for the future of robotics,” Mayoral said. “The ROS robotics community has been a constant inspiration for all of us over these past years, and I’m sure that with the new ROS 2, many more companies will be inspired in the same way. Our team members are excited about their next professional steps, and I’m sure many of us will stay very close to the ROS community.”
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Velodyne Lidar Inc. today announced that it has acquired Mapper.ai’s mapping and localization software, as well as its intellectual property assets. Velodyne said that Mapper’s technology will enable it to accelerate development of the Vella software that establishes its directional view Velarray lidar sensor.
The Velarray is the first solid-state Velodyne lidar sensor that is embeddable and fits behind a windshield, said Velodyne, which described it as “an integral component for superior, more effective advanced driver assistance systems” (ADAS).
The company provides lidar sensors for autonomous vehicles and driver assistance. David Hall, Velodyne’s founder and CEO invented real-time surround-view lidar systems in 2005 as part of Velodyne Acoustics. His invention revolutionized perception and autonomy for automotive, new mobility, mapping, robotics, and security.
Velodyne said its high-performance product line includes a broad range of sensors, including the cost-effective Puck, the versatile Ultra Puck, and the autonomy-advancing Alpha Puck.
Mapper.ai staffers to join Velodyne
Mapper’s entire leadership and engineering teams will join Velodyne, bolstering the company’s large and growing software-development group. The talent from Mapper.ai will augment the current team of engineers working on Vella software, which will accelerate Velodyne’s production of ADAS systems.
Velodyne claimed its technology will allow customers to unlock advanced capabilities for ADAS features, including pedestrian and bicycle avoidance, Lane Keep Assistance (LKA), Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB), Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC), and Traffic Jam Assist (TJA).
“By adding Vella software to our broad portfolio of lidar technology, Velodyne is poised to revolutionize ADAS performance and safety,” stated Anand Gopalan, chief technology officer at Velodyne. “Expanding our team to develop Vella is a giant step towards achieving our goal of mass-producing an ADAS solution that dramatically improves roadway safety.”
“Mapper technology gives us access to some key algorithmic elements and accelerates our development timeline,” Gopalan added. “Together, our sensors and software will allow powerful lidar-based safety solutions to be available on every vehicle.”
Mapper.ai developers will work on the Vella software for the Velarray sensor. Source: Velodyne Lidar
“Velodyne has both created the market for high-fidelity automotive lidar and established itself as the leader. We have been Velodyne customers for years and have already integrated their lidar sensors into easily deployable solutions for scalable high-definition mapping,” said Dr. Nikhil Naikal, founder and CEO of Mapper, who is joining Velodyne. “We are excited to use our technology to speed up Velodyne’s lidar-centric software approach to ADAS.”
In addition to ADAS, Velodyne said it will incorporate Mapper technology into lidar-centric solutions for other emerging applications, including autonomous vehicles, last-mile delivery services, security, smart cities, smart agriculture, robotics, and unmanned aerial vehicles.
Keven Walgamott had a good “feeling” about picking up the egg without crushing it. What seems simple for nearly everyone else can be more of a Herculean task for Walgamott, who lost his left hand and part of his arm in an electrical accident 17 years ago. But he was testing out the prototype of LUKE, a high-tech prosthetic arm with fingers that not only can move, they can move with his thoughts. And thanks to a biomedical engineering team at the University of Utah, he “felt” the egg well enough so his brain could tell the prosthetic hand not to squeeze too hard.
That’s because the team, led by University of Utah biomedical engineering associate professor Gregory Clark, has developed a way for the “LUKE Arm” (named after the robotic hand that Luke Skywalker got in The Empire Strikes Back) to mimic the way a human hand feels objects by sending the appropriate signals to the brain.
Their findings were published in a new paper co-authored by University of Utah biomedical engineering doctoral student Jacob George, former doctoral student David Kluger, Clark, and other colleagues in the latest edition of the journal Science Robotics.
Sending the right messages
“We changed the way we are sending that information to the brain so that it matches the human body. And by matching the human body, we were able to see improved benefits,” George says. “We’re making more biologically realistic signals.”
That means an amputee wearing the prosthetic arm can sense the touch of something soft or hard, understand better how to pick it up, and perform delicate tasks that would otherwise be impossible with a standard prosthetic with metal hooks or claws for hands.
“It almost put me to tears,” Walgamott says about using the LUKE Arm for the first time during clinical tests in 2017. “It was really amazing. I never thought I would be able to feel in that hand again.”
Walgamott, a real estate agent from West Valley City, Utah, and one of seven test subjects at the University of Utah, was able to pluck grapes without crushing them, pick up an egg without cracking it, and hold his wife’s hand with a sensation in the fingers similar to that of an able-bodied person.
“One of the first things he wanted to do was put on his wedding ring. That’s hard to do with one hand,” says Clark. “It was very moving.”
How those things are accomplished is through a complex series of mathematical calculations and modeling.
Kevin . Walgamott wears the LUKE prosthetic arm. Credit: University of Utah Center for Neural Interfaces
The LUKE Arm
The LUKE Arm has been in development for some 15 years. The arm itself is made of mostly metal motors and parts with a clear silicon “skin” over the hand. It is powered by an external battery and wired to a computer. It was developed by DEKA Research & Development Corp., a New Hampshire-based company founded by Segway inventor Dean Kamen.
Meanwhile, the University of Utah team has been developing a system that allows the prosthetic arm to tap into the wearer’s nerves, which are like biological wires that send signals to the arm to move. It does that thanks to an invention by University of Utah biomedical engineering Emeritus Distinguished Professor Richard A. Normann called the Utah Slanted Electrode Array.
The Array is a bundle of 100 microelectrodes and wires that are implanted into the amputee’s nerves in the forearm and connected to a computer outside the body. The array interprets the signals from the still-remaining arm nerves, and the computer translates them to digital signals that tell the arm to move.
But it also works the other way. To perform tasks such as picking up objects requires more than just the brain telling the hand to move. The prosthetic hand must also learn how to “feel” the object in order to know how much pressure to exert because you can’t figure that out just by looking at it.
First, the prosthetic arm has sensors in its hand that send signals to the nerves via the Array to mimic the feeling the hand gets upon grabbing something. But equally important is how those signals are sent. It involves understanding how your brain deals with transitions in information when it first touches something. Upon first contact of an object, a burst of impulses runs up the nerves to the brain and then tapers off. Recreating this was a big step.
“Just providing sensation is a big deal, but the way you send that information is also critically important, and if you make it more biologically realistic, the brain will understand it better and the performance of this sensation will also be better,” says Clark.
To achieve that, Clark’s team used mathematical calculations along with recorded impulses from a primate’s arm to create an approximate model of how humans receive these different signal patterns. That model was then implemented into the LUKE Arm system.
Future research
In addition to creating a prototype of the LUKE Arm with a sense of touch, the overall team is already developing a version that is completely portable and does not need to be wired to a computer outside the body. Instead, everything would be connected wirelessly, giving the wearer complete freedom.
Clark says the Utah Slanted Electrode Array is also capable of sending signals to the brain for more than just the sense of touch, such as pain and temperature, though the paper primarily addresses touch. And while their work currently has only involved amputees who lost their extremities below the elbow, where the muscles to move the hand are located, Clark says their research could also be applied to those who lost their arms above the elbow.
Clark hopes that in 2020 or 2021, three test subjects will be able to take the arm home to use, pending federal regulatory approval.
The research involves a number of institutions including the University of Utah’s Department of Neurosurgery, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and Department of Orthopedics, the University of Chicago’s Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, the Cleveland Clinic’s Department of Biomedical Engineering, and Utah neurotechnology companies Ripple Neuro LLC and Blackrock Microsystems. The project is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the National Science Foundation.
“This is an incredible interdisciplinary effort,” says Clark. “We could not have done this without the substantial efforts of everybody on that team.”
Editor’s note: Reposted from the University of Utah.
Among the challenges for developers of mobile manipulation and humanoid robots is the need for an affordable and flexible research platform. PAL Robotics last month announced its TIAGo++, a robot that includes two arms with seven degrees of freedom each.
As with PAL Robotics‘ one-armed TIAGo, the new model is based on the Robot Operating System (ROS) and can be expanded with additional sensors and end effectors. TIAGo++ is intended to enable engineers to create applications that include a touchscreen interface for human-robot interaction (HRI) and require simultaneous perception, bilateral manipulation, mobility, and artificial intelligence.
Jordi Pagès, product manager of the TIAGo robot at PAL Robotics responded to the following questions about TIAGo++ from The Robot Report:
For the development of TIAGo++, how did you collect feedback from the robotics community?
Pagès: PAL Robotics has a long history in research and development. We have been creating service robotics platforms since 2004. When we started thinking about the TIAGo robot development, we asked researchers from academia and industry which features would they expect or value in a platform for research.
Our goal with TIAGo has always been the same: to deliver a robust platform for research that easily adapts to diverse robotics projects and use cases. That’s why it was key to be in touch with the robotics and AI developers from start.
After delivering the robots, we usually ask for feedback and stay in touch with the research centers to learn about their activities and experiences, and the possible improvements or suggestions they would have. We do the same with the teams that use TIAGo for competitions like RoboCup or the European Robotics League [ERL].
At the same time, TIAGo is used in diverse European-funded projects where end users from different sectors, from healthcare to industry, are involved. This allows us to also learn from their feedback and keep finding new ways in which the platform could be of help in a user-centered way. That’s how we knew that adding a second arm into the TIAGo portfolio of its modular possibilities could be of help to the robotics community.
How long did it take PAL Robotics to develop the two-armed TIAGo++ in comparison with the original model?
Pagès: Our TIAGo platform is very modular and robust, so it took us just few months from taking the decision to having a working TIAGo++ ready to go. The modularity of all our robots and our wide experience developing humanoids usually helps us a lot in reducing the redesign and production time.
The software is also very modular, with extensive use of ROS, the de facto standard robotics middleware. Our customers are able to upgrade, modify, and substitute ROS packages. That way, they can focus their attention on their real research on perception, navigation, manipulation, HRI, and AI.
How high can TIAGo++ go, and what’s its reach?
Pagès: TIAGo++ can reach the floor and up to 1.75m [5.74 ft.] high with each arm, thanks to the combination of its 7 DoF [seven degrees of freedom] arms and its lifting torso. The maximum extension of each arm is 92cm [36.2 in.]. In our experience, this workspace allows TIAGo to work in several environments like domestic, healthcare, and industry.
The TIAGo can extend in height, and each arm has a reach of about 3 ft. Source: PAL Robotics
What’s the advantage of seven degrees of freedom for TIAGo’s arms over six degrees?
Pagès: A 7-DoF arm is much better in this sense for people who will be doing manipulation tasks. Adding more DoFs means that the robot can arrive to more poses — positions and orientations — of its arm and end-effector that it couldn’t reach before.
Also, this enables developers to reduce singularities, avoiding non-desired abrupt movements. This means that TIAGo has more possibilities to move its arm and reach a certain pose in space, with a more optimal combination of movements.
What sensors and motors are in the robot? Are they off-the-shelf or custom?
Pagès: All our mobile-based platforms, like the TIAGo robot, combine many sensors. TIAGo has a laser and sonars to move around and localize itself in space, an IMU [inertial measurement unit], and an RGB-D camera in the head. It can have a force/torque sensor on the wrist, especially useful to work in HRI scenarios. It also has a microphone and a speaker.
TIAGo has current sensing in every joint of the arm, enabling a very soft, effortless torque control on each of the arms. The possibility of having an expansion panel with diverse connectors makes it really easy for developers to add even more sensors to it, like a thermal camera or a gripper camera, once they have TIAGo in their labs.
About the motors, TIAGo++ makes use our custom joints integrating high-quality commercial components and our own electronic power management and control. All motors also have encoders to measure the current motor position.
What’s the biggest challenge that a humanoid like TIAGo++ can help with?
Pagès: TIAGo++ can help with are those tasks that require bi-manipulation, in combination with navigation, perception, HRI, or AI. Even though it is true that a one-arm robot can already perform a wide range of tasks, there are many actions in our daily life that require of two arms, or that are more comfortably or quickly done with two arms rather than one.
For example, two arms are good for grasping and carrying a box, carrying a platter, serving liquids, opening a bottle or a jar, folding clothes, or opening a wardrobe while holding an object. In the end, our world and tools have been designed for the average human body, which is with two arms, so TIAGo++ can adapt to that.
As a research platform based on ROS, is there anything that isn’t open-source? Are navigation and manipulation built in or modular?
Pagès: Most software is provided either open-sourced or with headers and dynamic libraries so that customers can develop applications making use of the given APIs or using the corresponding ROS interfaces at runtime.
For example, all the controllers in TIAGo++ are plugins of ros_control, so customers can implement their own controllers following our public tutorials and deploy them on the real robot or in the simulation.
Moreover, users can replace any ROS package by their own packages. This approach is very modular, and even if we provide navigation and manipulation built-in, developers can use their own navigation and manipulation instead of ours.
Did PAL work with NVIDIA on design and interoperability, or is that an example of the flexibility of ROS?
Pagès: It is both an example of how easy is to expand TIAGo with external devices and how easy is to integrate in ROS these devices.
One example of applications that our clients have developed using the NVIDIA Jetson TX2 is the “Bring me a beer” task from the Homer Team [at RoboCup], at the University of Koblenz-Landau. They made a complete application in which TIAGo robot could understand a natural language request, navigate autonomously to the kitchen, open the fridge, recognize and select the requested beer, grasp it, and deliver it back to the person who asked for it.
As a company, we work with multiple partners, but we also believe that our users should be able to have a flexible platform that allows them to easily integrate off-the-shelf solutions they already have.
How much software support is there for human-machine interaction via a touchscreen?
Pagès: The idea behind integrating a touchscreen on TIAGo++ is to bring customers the possibility to implement their own graphical interface, so we provide full access to the device. We work intensively with researchers, and we provide platforms as open as our customers need, such as a haptic interface.
What do robotics developers need to know about safety and security?
Pagès: A list of safety measures and best practices are provided in the Handbook of TIAGo robot in order that customers ensure safety both around the robot and for the robot itself.
TIAGo also features some implicit control modes that help to ensure safety while operation. For example, an effort control mode for the arms is provided so that collisions can be detected and the arm can be set in gravity compensation mode.
Furthermore, the wrist can include a six-axis force/torque sensor providing more accurate feedback about collisions or interactions of the end effector with the environment. This sensor can be also used to increase the safety of the robot. We provide this information to our customers and developers so they are always aware about the safety measures.
Have any TIAGo users moved toward commercialization based on what they’ve learned with PAL’s systems?
Pagès: At the moment, from the TIAGo family, we commercialize the TIAGo Base for intralogistics automation in indoor spaces such as factories or warehouses.
Some configurations of the TIAGo robot have been tested in pilots in healthcare applications. In the EnrichMe H2020 EU Project, the robot gave assistance to old people at home autonomously for up to approximately two months.
In robotics competitions such as the ERL, teams have shown the quite outstanding performance of TIAGo in accomplishing specific actions in a domestic environment. Two teams ended first and third in the RoboCup@Home OPL 2019 in Sydney, Australia. The Homer Team won for the third time in a row using TIAGo — see it clean a toilet here.
The CATIE Robotics Team ended up third in the first world championship in which it participated. For instance, in one task, it took out the trash.
The TIAGo robot is also used for European Union Horizon 2020 experiments in which collaborative robots that combine mobility with manipulation are used in industrial scenarios. This includes projects such as MEMMO for motion generation, Co4Robots for coordination, and RobMoSys for open-source software development.
Besides this research aspect, we have industrial customers that are using TIAGo to improve their manufacturing procedures.
Pagès: With TIAGo++, besides the platform itself, you also get support, extra advanced software solutions, and assessment from a company that continues to be in the robotics sector since more than 15 years ago. Robots like the TIAGo++ also use our know-how both in software and hardware, a knowledge that the team has been gathering from the development of cutting-edge biped humanoids like the torque-controlled TALOS.
From a technical point of view, TIAGo++ was made very compact to suit environments shared with people such as homes. Baxter was a very nice entry-point platform and was not originally designed to be a mobile manipulator but a fixed one. TIAGo++ can use the same navigation used in our commercial autonomous mobile robot for intralogistics tasks, the TIAGo Base.
Besides, TIAGo++ is a fully customizable robot in all aspects: You can select the options you want in hardware and software, so you get the ideal platform you want to have in your robotics lab. For a mobile manipulator with two 7-DoF arms, force/torque sensors, ROS-based, affordable, and with community support, we believe TIAGo++ should be a very good option.
The TIAGo community is growing around the world, and we are sure that we will see more and more robots helping people in different scenarios very soon.
What’s the price point for TIAGo++?
Pagès: The starting price is around €90,000 [$100,370 U.S.]. It really depends on the configuration, devices, computer power, sensors, and extras that each client can choose for their TIAGo robot, so the price can vary.
Unlike industrial automation, which has been affected by a decline in automotive sales worldwide, robots for e-commerce order fulfillment continue to face strong demand. Warehouses, third-part logistics providers, and grocers are turning to robots because of competitive pressures, labor scarcities, and consumer expectations of rapid delivery. However, robotics developers and suppliers must distinguish themselves in a crowded market. The Robotics-as-a-Service, or RaaS, model is one way to serve retail supply chain needs, said Kindred Inc.
By 2025, there will be more than 4 million robots in operation at 50,000 warehouses around the world, predicted ABI Research. It cited improvements in computer vision, artificial intelligence, and deep learning.
“Economically viable mobile manipulation robots from the likes of RightHand Robotics and Kindred Systems are now enabling a wider variety of individual items to be automatically picked and placed within a fulfillment operation,” said ABI Research. “By combining mobile robots, picking robots, and even autonomous forklifts, fulfillment centers can achieve greater levels of automation in an efficient and cost-effective way.”
“Many robot technology vendors are providing additional value by offering flexible pricing options,” stated the research firm. “Robotics-as-a-Service models mean that large CapEx costs can be replaced with more accessible OpEx costs that are directly proportional to the consumption of technologies or services, improving the affordability of robotics systems among the midmarket, further driving adoption.”
Anjos: Sure. Kindred makes AI-enhanced, autonomous, piece-picking robots. Today, they’re optimized to perform the piece-picking process in a fulfillment center, for example, in a facility that fills individual e-commerce orders.
It’s important to understand our solution is more than a shiny robotic arm. Besides the part you can see — the robotic arm — our solution includes an AI platform to enable autonomous learning and in-motion planning, plus the latest in robotic technology, backed by our integration and support services.
The Robot Report visited Kindred at Automate/ProMat 2019 — what’s new since then?
Anjos: Since then, we’ve been hard at work on a new gripper optimized to handle rigid items like shampoo bottles and small cartons. We’ve got a ton of new AI models in development, and we continue to tune SORT’s performance using reinforcement learning.
What should engineers at user companies know about AutoGrasp and SORT?
Anjos: AutoGrasp is the unique combination of technologies behind SORT. There’s the AI-powered vision, grasping, and manipulation technology that allows the robot to quickly and accurately sort batches into discrete orders.
Then there’s the robotic device itself, which has been engineered for speed, agility and a wide range of motion. And finally, we offer WMS [warehouse management system] integration, process design, and deployment services, as well as ongoing maintenance and support, of course.
What use cases are better for collaborative robots or cobots versus standard industrial arms?
Anjos: Kindred’s solution is more than a robotic arm. It’s equipped with AI-enhanced computer vision, so it can work effectively in the dynamic conditions that we often find in a fulfillment environment. It responds to what it senses in real time and can even configure itself on the fly by changing the suction grip attachment while in motion.
The bottom line is, any solution that works for several different use cases is the result of compromises. That’s the nature of any multi-purpose device. We chose to optimize SORT for a specific step in the fulfillment process. That’s how we’re able to give it the ability to grasp, manipulate and place items with human-like accuracy — but with machine-like consistency and stamina.
And, like the people our robot works alongside of, SORT can learn on the job. Not only from its own experience, but based on the combined experience of other robots on the network as well.
RaaS can aid robotics adoption
Victor Anjos, VP of engineering, Kindred
Have you always offered both the AI and robotics elements of your products through an RaaS model?
Anjos: Yes, we have. Both are included in RaaS, and it has been an important part of our model.
Can you give an example of how RaaS works during implementation and then for ongoing support? What sorts of issues can arise?
Anjos: With our RaaS model, the assets are owned and maintained by Kindred, while the customer pays for the picking service as needed. Implementing RaaS eliminates the customer’s upfront capital expense.
Of course, the customer still needs to allocate operational and IT resources to make the RaaS implementation a success.
Is RaaS evolving or becoming more widespread and understood? Are there still pockets of supply chains that aren’t familiar with leasing models?
Anjos: RaaS is a relatively new concept for the supply chain industry, but it’s attracting a lot of attention. The financial model aligns with their operating budgets. And customers have an ability to scale the use of robots to meet peak demand, increasing asset utilization throughout the year.
Are there situations where it’s better to develop robots in-house or buy them outright than to use RaaS?
Anjos: Every customer I’ve spoken with has their hands full managing fulfillment operations. They’re not very eager to hire a team of AI developers to build a fleet of robots and hire engineers to maintain them! And Kindred isn’t interested in selling apparel, so it all works out!
What issues can arise during a RaaS relationship, and how much should providers and clients collaborate?
Anjos: Every supply chain system implementation is unique. During implementation, Kindred’s customer-success team works with our customer to understand performance requirements, integrate Kindred robots into their existing warehouse processes and systems, and provide onsite and remote support to ensure the success of each implementation.
Do you see RaaS spreading from order fulfillment to retail stores? What else would you like to see?
Anjos: That’s very possible. Robot use is increasing across the entire retail industry, and the RaaS model certainly makes adoption of this technology even easier and more beneficial.
For example, I can see how some of the robotic technologies developed for traditional fulfillment centers could be used in an urban or micro-fulfillment centers scenario.
The Lucid Robotic System has received FDA clearance. Source: Neural Analytics
LOS ANGELES — Neural Analytics Inc., a medical robotics company developing and commercializing technologies to measure and track brain health, has announced a strategic partnership with NGK Spark Plug Co., a Japan-based company that specializes in comprehensive ceramics processing. Neural Analytics said the partnership will allow it to expand its manufacturing capabilities and global footprint.
Neural Analytics’ Lucid Robotic System (LRS) includes the Lucid M1 Transcranial Doppler Ultrasound System and NeuralBot system. The resulting autonomous robotic transcranial doppler (rTCD) platform is designed to non-invasively search, measure, and display objective brain blood-flow information in real time.
The Los Angeles-based company’s technology integrates ultrasound and robotics to empower clinicians with critical information about brain health to make clinical decisions. Through its algorithm, analytics, and autonomous robotics, Neural Analytics provides valuable information that can identify pathologies such as Patent Foramen Ovale (PFO), a form of right-to-left shunt.
Nagoya, Japan-based NGK Spark Plug claims to be the world’s leading manufacturer of spark plugs and automotive sensors, as well as a broad lineup of packaging, cutting tools, bio ceramics, and industrial ceramics. The company has more than 15,000 employees and develops products related to the environment, energy, next-generation vehicles, and the medical device and diagnostic industries.
Neural Analytics and NGK to provide high-quality parts, global access
“This strategic partnership between Neural Analytics and NGK Spark Plug is built on a shared vision for the future of global healthcare and a foundation of common values,” said Leo Petrossian, Ph.D., co-founder and CEO of Neural Analytics. “We are honored with this opportunity and look forward to learning from our new partners how they have built a great global enterprise,”
NGK Spark Plug has vast manufacturing expertise in ultra-high precision ceramics. With this partnership, both companies said they are committed in working together to build high-quality products at a reasonable cost to allow greater access to technologies like the Lucid Robotic System.
“I am very pleased with this strategic partnership with Neural Analytics,” said Toru Matsui, executive vice president of NGK Spark Plug. “This, combined with a shared vision, is an exciting opportunity for both companies. This alliance enables the acceleration of their great technology to the greater market.”
This follows Neural Analytics’ May announcement of its Series C round close, led by Alpha Edison. In total, the company has raised approximately $70 million in funding to date.
Neural Analytics said it remains “committed to advancing brain healthcare through transformative technology to empower clinicians with the critical information needed to make clinical decisions and improve patient outcomes.”
