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From The Editor
A Big Thank You to Robotics World Readers and Sponsors
With Thanksgiving right around the corner in the U.S., I wanted to take a few seconds to thank all of the Robotics-World newsletter subscribers and our sponsors for their support over the past year. It’s always a challenge to start a new venture, but it helps when you have good partners who believe in similar goals for a project. At Robotics-World, our goal first and foremost is to provide readers with comprehensive coverage (both news, opinion and analysis) around the entire world of robotics, not just one area like manufacturing or warehousing. We have a lot of exciting new ways of providing important robotics content for 2022, so be sure to continue reading the newsletter. Also, remember you can follow us on LinkedIn and now Twitter for updates and content you may have missed! Happy Thanksgiving! – Keith Shaw, Managing Editor |
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Cleo Robotics Announces Availability of Rugged Drone
Cleo Robotics, which has developed a stable and highly maneuverable ducted bi-rotor drone, has announced the availability of the Dronut X1, aimed at law enforcement, industrial inspection, construction and defense use cases. The company’s patented thrust vectoring technology has made the hyper-efficient ducted fan design stable in flight. The Dronut’s completely enclosed propellers enable the X1 to safely bounce off objects and people, and is a fraction of the size of similarly featured drones. For industrial and commercial applications, the Dronut X1 enables unmanned inspections of dangerous and confined spaces, such as tanks, pressure vessels, and crawl spaces, where no drone or robot could previously go. The Dronut X1 is portable, rugged and also a reliable intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) solution for GPS-denied environments, making it ideal for defense use cases. In the law enforcement space, the X1 can scout areas in advance of deploying officers into high-risk situations, or act as a flying surveillance camera for facility security operations. |
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Percepto Upgrades Inspection Platform, Launches New Mobile Drone
Percepto, which is developing autonomous inspection with industrial robotics, has announced the launch of its 2022 Autonomous Inspection & Monitoring (AIM) platform, and new Air Mobile drone. Percepto aims to offer customers an end-to-end solution powered by artificial intelligence to collate and streamline all visual data. The new AIM 2022 Insight Manager delivers AI-powered packaged solutions for sector-specific use cases, including solar, mining, energy, oil & gas and other industries. By drawing on tens of thousands of hours collected by autonomous robot missions at industrial facilities, Percepto’s AI change detection framework offers unified visual data and business insights for each of these sectors. |
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Celera Motion Unveils Multiturn Inductive Angle Encoder
Celera Motion has announced the latest addition to its IncOder and Ultra IncOder series – the Multiturn IncOder inductive angle encoder. The new encoders offer precise angle measurements for applications that include robot joints, cranes and antenna masts. Using an inductive technique, the non-contact Multiturn IncOder enables precise and reliable absolute angle measurements over multiple revolutions, even in harsh environments. The company said it is easy to install this in several applications. In addition to the joints, cranes and antenna masts, the Multiturn IncOder can be installed in servo motors, linear stages, cartesian robots, and wind turbines. |
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Kontron, Hailo Team up for AI Edge Inference Solutions
Kontron, which develops IoT/embedded computing technology (ECT), has announced a strategic partnership with AI chipmaker Hailo to develop next-generation AI edge inference solutions. The Hailo-8 AI processor enables edge devices to run at performance levels previously only possible in the cloud. The new collaboration will offer customers a new level of high-performance, scalable AI-edge application-ready platforms for several market segments, including Industry 4.0, smart cities, and smart retail. Kontron’s pITX-iMX8M-AI-H8 Arm-based 2.5-inch SBC and the KBox A-150-WKL-AI-H8 x86-based featuring a range of Intel Core i processors (8365UE, formerly Whiskey Lake) for x86-based applications are compact, energy-efficient, fanless high-performance edge compute platforms that can integrate with the Hailo-8 AI-accelerator. |
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Nala Robotics Launches Multi-Cuisine Robotic Kitchen
Nala Robotics has announced the launch of its fully automatic robotic kitchen, which can cook millions of recipes from around the world without any human intervention. Through robotics, artificial intelligence and machine learning, Nala can “master any dish in a matter of minutes.” The Nala recipe catalog aims to offer dishes from chefs and celebrities from around the world, and users can upload their recipes that are coded and then replicated by Nala. The system can also personalize and customize ingredients to a customer’s liking, or in the words of the company’s founder, Ajay Sunkara, “immortalize your grandma’s recipe” to create a one-stop eatery for every palate, across multiple cuisines. |
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Lumentum Expands VCSEL-based Arrays for 1D, 2D Offerings
Lumentum Holdings, which develops vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) arrays for 3D sensing and light detection and ranging (lidar) applications, has announced it expanded its multi-junction VCSEL-based offerings to include new breakthrough high-performance 1D and 2D addressable arrays. The new arrays can assist developers of advanced automotive, consumer and industrial lidar and 3D sensing applications. Lumentum said VCSEL arrays have become the preferred laser illumination source for short-range 3D sensing applications, such as biometric security and world-facing lidar in consumer mobile devices, due to its reliability and ability to be manufactured at scale. The company’s multi-junction VCSEL arrays are a way to deliver the significantly higher peak optical power densities and efficiencies required for longer-range applications by decreasing the electrical current needed and simplifying electrical driver and package design. |
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In Case You Missed It
NASA Picks Intuitive Machines for $77.5M Moon Science Mission
NASA has announced it awarded Intuitive Machines of Houston a contract to deliver research, including science investigations and a technology demonstration, to the Moon in 2024. The commercial delivery is part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative and the Artemis program. Four investigations will be aboard the Nova-C lander, destined for Reiner Gamma, “one of the most distinctive and enigmatic natural features on the Moon,” said NASA. Known as a lunar swirl, Reiner Gamma is on the western edge of the Moon (as seen from Earth), and is one of the most visible lunar swirls. Scientists are looking to learn more about how lunar swirls form, and their relationship to the Moon’s magnetic field.
One of the four investigations is the Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration (CADRE, pictured at right), which consists of mobile robots programmed to work as an autonomous team to explore the lunar surface, collect data, and map different areas of the Moon in 3D. CADRE uses its inertial measurement unit (IMU), stereo cameras, and a Sun sensor to track the position of each robot as they explore the lunar surface. CADRE is led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Read More |
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Featured Article
ABB Partners With Sevensense to Improve Visual Navigation for AMRs
ABB has announced a partnership with and investment in Sevensense Robotics, an ETH Zurich spinoff company developing artificial intelligence and 3D visual technologies. The strategic partnership will enhance ABB’s new autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) with additional flexibility as they navigate autonomously in complex, dynamic indoor and outdoor environments close to people. ABB said the partnership is another step in its strategy to drive the next generation of flexible automation, and expand its robotics and automation profile, following its acquisition of ASTI Mobile Robotics in July 2021. The partnership includes a minority investment in Sevensense through ABB’s venture capital unit, ABB Technology Ventures, and is expected to close by the end of November 2021. Financial terms of the investment were not disclosed. The startup’s navigation technology uses advanced computer vision and AI algorithms to create a 3D map that is more accurate than today’s 2D solutions, and more cost-effective than laser scanner-based navigation. An AMR equipped with 3D Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) technology will be able to accurately interpret its environment, identify a person, a pallet or another robot and autonomously make decisions to navigate around these obstacles. This level of intelligence aims to enable safer human-machine interactions, and ensure that material flows around factories and warehouses are safe and efficient. Read More |
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News for Robot Makers
- Fieldin Acquires Midnight Robotics to Accelerate Autonomous Farming
Smart farm operations management company Fieldin has announced it acquired Midnight Robotics, a developer of agricultural autonomous driving technology. The acquisition combines a sensor-based operational farming platform with autonomous driving technologies to empower growers in the day-to-day management of their farms. Fieldin said it is already deploying the combined platform in major platforms in California, with additional deployments of the end-to-end system in coming months. The platform collects farming data and turns it into actionable insights, as well as guided decision-making and autonomous execution via driverless tractors and other machinery from within the same dashboard. Fielin said the onboarding of the new autonomous capabilities takes less than one day, with Fieldin arriving at the farm and retrofitting tractors and other machinery with lidar-based autonomy kits that send data back to the platform in real time.
- iRobot Acquires Air Purification Firm Aeris Cleantec
Consumer robot maker iRobot has announced it acquired privately-held Aeris Cleantec AG, a provider of premium air purifiers based in Cham, Zug Switzerland. iRobot said the acquisition supports is vision of building “the most thoughtful robotics and developing intelligent home innovations that make life better.” Founded in 2015, Aeris Cleantec designs and sells a range of high-performance air purifiers that use HEPA filtration, intelligence and sophisticated design. The purifiers aim to quietly remove a wide range of pollutants, including allergens, smoke, odors and pet dander. Through a mobile app, Aeris users can activate the purifier, control the fan speed, compare indoor and outdoor air quality, and leverage other intelligent technologies to train the device to operate according to their individual needs.
- Surfacide Launches Eos, a Portable UV Disinfection Device
Surfacide, which develops UV-C technologies for cleaning and disinfection, has announced Eos, a portable, hospital-grade UV light disinfection device aimed at high-traffic, everyday spaces such as schools, offices, gyms, hotels, and restaurants. The company said Eos is a stand-alone alternative to the company’s robotic Helios System, a trio of UV robots that aims to fight pathogens in hospitals and healthcare facilities. At 71-inches tall, the Eos is a compact device on wheels that delivers floor-to-ceiling, 360-degree UV light disinfection, and can be moved from one environment to the next. Once it is wheeled into a room and an operator leaves, the Eos can begin its disinfection cycle via a wireless tablet. When the cycle is complete, the device can send an alert to the tablet. The Eos app is cloud-connected via Wi-Fi, allowing for real-time data access and instant, actionable reporting to help drive outcomes and utilization. View Video
- Formic Helps Manufacturer Automate for First Time in 105 Years With Cobot
Polar Hardware, which manufactures door and truck body hardware, announced it chose Formic’s robotics-as-a-service system to automate for the first time in 105 years of business. Formic partnered with DesignHawk from Chicago to engineer a machine tending system, which leverages a Universal Robot URe collaborative robot (cobot) to automate Polar’s press brake application. The company said it was struggling to meet its production goals and fill orders, and decided to turn to an automation solution. “If Polar didn’t automate, we would be out of business,” said Jose Figuerao, the plant manager at Polar. “We cannot compete if we cannot produce.” Polar said it turned to Formic to deliver customized robots at a low hourly rate with no money upfront and guaranteed uptime after it researched other automation options. The Formic service includes planning, deployment and maintenance capabilities.
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Robotics Funding
Monarch Tractor Raises $61M to Speed Production of Self-Driving Tractor
Monarch Tractor, which is developing a fully electric, driver-optional tractor, has announced raising $61 million in Series B funding, led by Astanor Ventures. The company said it will use the new funding to scale its sales, service, and manufacturing footprint, expand its product offerings, and launch international pilot test programs for regional market validation. The company said CUSTOMER demand has allowed the company to scale production and expand its manufacturing space. Monarch said it plans to expand globally into South America, Europe and Asia for its international pilot testing programs. Read More |
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SVT Robotics Raises $25M to Expand Integration Platform
SVT Robotics, which develops software to accelerate and simplify the integration and deployment of robotics, has announced raising $25 million in Series A funding. The investment was led by Tiger Global, with participation from Prologis Ventures. “With no ‘plug-and-play’ integration solution for industrial robotics, warehouses and manufacturers have been prevented from quickly deploying the automation they need to keep pace with the dramatic shifts in labor dynamics we’ve seen over the past year,” said Griffin Schroeder, partner at Tiger Global. “With its SOFTBOT Platform, SVT Robotics is solving this crucial interoperability problem. We believe the company is well-positioned to lead in the rapid and flexible deployment of automation, and we’re excited to partner with them as they grow.” Read More |
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Robotics Funding
Clarapath Raises $32M in Additional Funding for Pathology Robotics
Clarapath, a robotics company automating the way pathology laboratories process human and animal tissues, has announced a follow-on financing extending its Series B round with an additional $16 million in funding from its previous close of $16 million. The company has now raised more than $39 million to expand its automated process for the way tissue is processed onto glass slides via “sectioning”, or cutting a cross-section of the tissue specimen. The company’s first robotic instrument, called SectionStar, is a fully automated system that aims to revolutionize the reliability and efficiency of the pathology lab, the company said. This standardization in the quality of tissue sections is foundational for the molecular mapping of human disease and in the development of new treatment pathways. Read More |
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HaptX Earns $4M Investment to Accelerate Expansion
HaptX, which develops realistic haptic gloves for virtual reality and robotics applications, has announced it secured a $4 million credit facility from Crescent Cove Advisors. The additional money brings the company’s recent Series A funding round to $28 million, with a total funding to $35 million. The company’s flagship product is HaptX Gloves DK2, advanced haptic feedback gloves. The new funding will speed up expanded production of the globes, after the first production run sold out in less than six months. HaptX said the credit facility will also be used to accelerate the development and commercial introduction of new haptic products. Read More |
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Helm.AI Raises $26M to Expand L4 Self-Driving Software
Helm.ai, which develops next-generation artificial intelligence software for autonomous driving applications, has announced raising $26 million in Series B funding. The funding will help the company serve its growing customer bases, and accelerate product expansion of its highly scalable approach to autonomous driving software. Unlike traditional deep learning systems, Helm.ai’s Deep Teaching unsupervised learning technology leverages mathematical modeling to quickly and cost-effectively train on large scale datasets with little to no human intervention, leading to state-of-the-art accuracy on several automotive compute platforms. Read More |
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Machina Labs Emerges from Stealth, Raises $16.3M
Machina Labs, which aims to advance manufacturing through robotics and artificial intelligence, has emerged from stealth mode and announced it closed a $16.3 million Series A round of funding. The financing will be used to grow Machina’s team in Los Angeles and to expand R&D and manufacturing capacity to meet increasing customer demand. Founded in 2019, Machina Labs has been working behind the scenes to “blaze new trails in a manufacturing market that is ripe for disruption.” Manufacturing continues to rely on traditional processes that are rigid, slow and expensive – for example, in some industries, the manufacturing decision lifecycle can be as long as seven years. Read More |
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