Cogniteam chooses RTI Connext for cloud robot communications, management

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Cogniteam provides a unified way to develop, deploy, and manage robot fleets. Source: Cogniteam

Real-Time Innovations, or RTI, today announced that Cogniteam has chosen RTI Connext to provide commercially supported communications to its unified cloud-based platform for robot design, development, and testing.

Developers can use Connext, which is based on the Data Distribution Service (DDS) standard, to monitor incoming data in real time from robots to the cloud, said RTI. It promises to improve productivity, as Cogniteam achieved coding translation from the Robot Operating System (ROS) to ROS 2 in one month, compared with the market norm of three to six months, asserted the companies.

“New and exciting tools are emerging in robotics aimed at facilitating interconnectivity of systems and components at the edge and in the cloud,” said Ari Yakir, vice president of research and discovery at Cogniteam, in a release. “Connext did exactly what we needed it to — from adding functionality between libraries to retrieving critical data from the edge device — speeding up our production timeline and advancing robotic platform development.”

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Cogniteam needed tailored communications

Cogniteam provides a low-code development platform, teleoperation capabilities, and a simulation tool for scaling robot fleets. The company, which has offices in Boston and Petach Tikva, Israel, needed a way to achieve communication functionality from ROS to ROS 2 and a seamless way to talk between autonomous systems on land, in the air, or on the sea.

Connext offers both a native DDS and a commercially-supported ROS Middleware Abstraction Interface (RMW) layer, which Cogniteam said allowed its platform to communicate via the cloud in production and remote settings, providing all of the functionality of getting data and controlling robots.

The company added that it selected Connext so it could be the first to enable support for a wide range of autonomous robots in a unified way via the cloud. RTI’s trusted distribution partner in Israel, Matrix, oversaw the integration process of Connext with Cogniteam’s edge device agent. It also provided on-site technical enablement and support.

Cogniteam partnered with Advantech in December 2023 to accelerate the development of autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) through remote monitoring and management.

RTI provides integration platform for intelligent systems

“Robotics are enabling efficient autonomy and productivity in nearly every vertical,” stated Bob Leigh, senior director of commercial markets at RTI.

Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Real-Time Innovations said RTI Connext users can build intelligent, distributed systems that combine advanced sensing, fast control, and AI algorithms on its software framework. It demonstrated Connext Drive 3.0 for software-defined vehicles at CES 2024.

“Connext includes an open interface and advanced integration capabilities that slash costs across a system’s life cycle, from initial development and integration through ongoing maintenance and upgrades,” added Leigh. “We’re proud to have a long-standing relationship with Cogniteam and we welcome them to our expansive ecosystem of companies choosing Connext as their commercial DDS solution.”

With 2,000 customer designs, RTI said it can help customers get to production. The company claimed that its software runs more than 250 autonomous vehicle programs, supports dozens of advanced driver-assist systems (ADAS) and software-defined architectures, and controls the largest power plants in North America. It also said its platform integrates over 400 major defense programs, drives a new generation of MedTech systems and robotics, and underlies Canada’s air traffic control and NASA’s launch-control systems.