Jennifer Apicella (left) of the PRN and Fady Saad (right) of Cybernetix Ventures have announced a strategic partnership. | Source: Pittsburgh Robotics Network

Cybernetix Ventures yesterday announced a strategic partnership with the Pittsburgh Robotics Network. The early-stage venture capital firm said it is part of its long-term robotics cluster engagement efforts. 

The partnership is a joint initiative to set Pittsburgh’s robotics startups up for success, and bring more of the cluster’s investable robotics opportunities to global markets. The Pittsburgh Robotics Network (PRN) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering innovation and growth in southwestern Pennsylvania. 

“The Pittsburgh Robotics Network is one of the top robotics clusters in the U.S., with a powerhouse team and strong robotics innovators emerging,” stated Fady Saad, founder and general partner of Cybernetix Ventures. “Like our firm, the PRN is focused on markets-driven, actionable, scalable use cases for robotics. We are excited to amplify their efforts and connect the cluster further with the larger investment community.”

Founded in 2021, Cybernetix focuses on robotics, automation, and industrial AI investments. The venture capital firm works with robotics clusters around the world to elevate the most promising robotics founders and startups to the global stage. 

Cybernetix expands robotics focus

Cybernetix aims to connect the PRN’s startups with the firm’s diverse ecosystem of potential customers, later-stage investors, financial institutions, and acquirers. The company will join forces with the PRN as a Leader Premier Partner to provide advice to startups. 

“Cybernetix Ventures is a premier investment firm for robotics, and this partnership represents a unique opportunity for not only robotics companies, but for accelerating the commercial adoption of robotics solutions overall,” added Jennifer Apicella, executive director of the PRN.

“Both Cybernetix Ventures and the PRN share a set of aligned values that promise to bring significant benefits to robotics companies on the path to commercialization,” she said. “We admire their unique expertise and understanding of how robotics will directly contribute to the advancement of specific industries, both now and into the future.”

The partners announced their collaboration at the Agriculture & Robotics Summit, where the PRN welcomed innovators, investors, and industry to Pittsburgh to explore the future of smart agriculture. Cybernetix, which has focused on vertical robotics applications in manufacturing, logistics, construction, and healthcare since its inception, participated in the event as a launchpad for its expanded focus on agriculture and climate robotics.

“The new use cases and overall necessity for robotics innovation in agriculture have accelerated the sector’s investment potential, and we will explore investments in agriculture and climate robotics to add to our solid portfolio,” Saad said.

PRN head to speak at the Robotics Summit

Apicella will be taking part in a panel discussion at the 2024 Robotics Summit & Expo, which takes place on May 1 and 2 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. She will be joined by Stephen M. Muck, executive chairman of Advanced Construction Robotics; Brandon Contino, CEO of Four Growers; and Andy McMillan, chair of the board of directors at Cirtronics.

During the session, “Paving the Road to Success in Robotics Commercialization,” attendees can learn how the four industry leaders have conquered obstacles, scaled operations, and transformed ideas into viable products. 

This will be the largest Robotics Summit ever. It 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! The PRN is also a sponsor of the Robotics Summit. Registration is now open for the event.

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Interested attendees have only today left to register for the first-ever RBR50 Gala held at the Robotics Summit & Expo. At the event, attendees will have the opportunity to network and learn from roboticists working on the most cutting-edge technology in the industry.  

The inaugural RBR50 Gala will be on May 1 from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. EDT at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center at the end of the first day of the Robotics Summit & Expo. The RBR50 Gala offers a chance to connect with the world’s leading robotics innovators. It’s also an evening of celebration to honor leading roboticists and their impressive achievements. 

The event will include a cocktail hour, a plated dinner, photo opportunities, and the chance to hear from the Robot of the Year, Startup of the Year, and Application of the Year winners. Each RBR50 winner will receive two complimentary tickets to the Robotics Summit and RBR50 Gala. A limited number of tickets is also available to summit attendees. 

In addition to the RBR50 Gala, the Robotics Summit will have a dedicated area on the show floor for current and previous RBR50 winners to showcase their technologies. This year, the showcase will feature demonstrations from Agility Robotics, Brightpick, HEBI, Capra Robotics, Boston Dynamics, Electric Sheep, Opteran, Indoor Robotics, Instock, Mushiny, Locus Robotics, Relay Robotics, and Mecademic.

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

More about the 2024 Robotics Summit & Expo

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.

Keynotes will feature luminaries from Agility Robotics, Amazon Robotics, Teradyne, Disney Research, and Medtronic. The event will also include various networking opportunities, a startup showcase, a career fair, and more!

The Robotics Summit will be co-located with DeviceTalks, an event focused on medical devices, and the inaugural Digital Transformation Forum. Registration is now open for the event.

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Electric Sheep is vertically integrating its field operations team with autonomous mowers. | Credit: Electric Sheep

This year, the annual RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards added new categories: Application of the Year, Startup of the Year, and Robot of the Year. We received numerous submissions for some incredible startups innovating in some interesting markets. The Robot Report‘s team chose autonomous landscaping company Electric Sheep Robotics as the inaugural RBR50 Startup of the Year.

The San Francisco-based company has a novel business plan that is immediately bringing in revenue while it takes its time to evolve the underlying technology. This is different from many robotics businesses, which simply sell or lease systems to integrators and end users.

“We are honored to be recognized by WTWH Media’s Robotics Group with this inaugural award. I want to also acknowledge our dedicated team at Electric Sheep that are passionate about creating the most advanced robotics that can change an often overlooked industry,” stated Nag Murty, co-founder and CEO of Electric Sheep. “We are doing things differently than other robotic companies by using AI and ML at a higher level for localization and high-level control. We are scaling physical agents across the country to care for our outdoor spaces.”

Founded in 2019, Electric Sheep has grown to over 100 employees, and it has raised more than $25 million in funding to date, according to Crunchbase.

You can also learn more about Murty’s entrepreneurial philosophy and Chief Technology Officer Michael Laskey’s design principles on a recent episode of The Robot Report Podcast.

Acquisitions add data for autonomy AI

Electric Sheep develops autonomous robots for outdoor maintenance. Its flagship robot is an autonomous mower backed by the company’s ES1 foundation model.

Based on recent advances in generative AI, ES1 is a learned-world model that enables reasoning and planning for the Verdie robot. ES1 powers both the RAM robot for mowing and now Verdie for edging and trimming lawns and bushes and blowing leaves.

In addition, Electric Sheep acquired four landscaping companies last year and said that this is a key part of its long-term plan. This strategy isn’t just about revenue. The businesses it acquires can also use ES1 and provide crucial data to make the model more effective.

This information can help improve Electric Sheep’s operations, enabling its robots to start working as soon as they arrive at a job site. 

Since taking this two-pronged approach to development and business, the company reported that its sales have grown eightfold. Electric Sheep has set itself apart from other startups by making sure it always has money coming in and by finding a unique way to get important data about its business.

Meet Electric Sheep at the Robotics Summit & Expo 

This year’s RBR50 award winners will be celebrated at the Robotics Summit & Expo, which will be on May 1 and 2 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. Electric Sheep will be demonstrate its newest robot powered by ES1, Verdie, the RBR50 showcase on the expo floor.

Attendees at the 2024 Robotics Summit and Expo at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center will have an opportunity to meet members of Electric Sheep’s executive team. Co-founder and CEO Nag Murty will present a session titled “Startup Survival Guide to Lean Times” at 2:30 p.m. EDT on Thursday, May 2.

Murty will be joined by Oliver Mitchell, partner of ff Venture Capital; Fiona O’Donnell McCarthy, principal of True Ventures; and Steve Crowe, executive editor of robotics at WTWH Media. This panel will share tips from experienced investors and robotics companies on what they’re looking for and attendees will learn how organizations can navigate the challenging path to commercialization.

In addition, tickets are available for the first RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards Gala, which will be at the end of Day 1 of the event. The Robotics Summit & Expo will be the biggest yet, with keynotes and sessions from leading companies, more than 200 exhibitors, up to 5,000 attendees, a Women in Robotics Breakfast, and a Robotics Engineering Career Fair.

Co-located events include DeviceTalks Boston, which focuses on medical devices, and the inaugural Digital Transformation Forum. which will focus on manufacturing. Registration is now open for the Robotics Summit.

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

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Two Autopicker mobile manipulators in a warehouse aisle. Source: Brightpick

This year, the annual RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards added new categories: Application of the Year, Startup of the Year, and Robot of the Year. We received numerous submissions, but the Autopicker system from Brightpick stood out for automating both mobile manipulation and each picking.

Other robots combining mobility with manipulation have come and gone, from Fetch and Freight to Swift, in part because getting to commercially viable levels of reliability has been challenging. Not only has Autopicker added newer artificial intelligence to the mix, but it has also been deployed in existing customer warehouses.

“On the AI side, this was not possible five to six years ago,” Jan Zizka, co-founder and CEO of Brightpick, told The Robot Report. “Serious breakthroughs enable machine learning to generalize to unseen items.”

Autopicker learns with each pick

Autopicker combines a mobile base, a robotic arm, machine vision, and AI for e-commerce order fulfillment. The system reduces the need for warehouse associates to travel with carts, thanks to its patented design, which enables it to pick items from standard shelving and place them in either of two totes.

Brightpick said Autopicker can pick groceries, cosmetics, electronics, pharmaceuticals, apparel, and more with 99.9% accuracy. Its AI algorithms have been trained on more than 500 million picks to date, and they are improving with each pick, added the company.

Announced in February 2023, the system also supports pallet picking, replenishment, dynamic slotting, buffering, and dispatch. It can store up to 50,000 SKUs, said Brightpick. It also offers a goods-to-person option for heavy or hard-to-pick items, and Autopicker can raise its bins to waist height for ergonomic picking.

In the past year, customers such as Netrush and Rohlik Group began deploying the company’s latest system. Autopicker is available for direct purchase or through a robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) model.

See Brightpick at the Robotics Summit & Expo 

Cincinnati-based Brightpick is a unit of Bratislava, Slovakia-based machine vision provider Photoneo s.r.o. The company said its systems can “enable warehouses of any size to fully automate order picking, consolidation, dispatch, and stock replenishment.”

Brightpick, which has more than 200 employees, claimed that its robots take only weeks to deploy and can reduce labor assigned to picking by 98% and picking costs by half. In January 2023, the company raised $19 million in Series B funding for its U.S. expansion, and it said demand for Autopicker has been strong.

This year’s RBR50 award winners will be celebrated at the Robotics Summit & Expo, which will be on May 1 and 2 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. Brightpick will be part of the RBR50 showcase on the expo floor.

In addition, tickets are available for the first RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards Gala, which will be at the end of Day 1 of the event. The Robotics Summit & Expo will be the biggest yet, with keynotes and sessions from leading companies, more than 200 exhibitors, up to 5,000 attendees, a Women in Robotics Breakfast, and a Robotics Engineering Career Fair.

Co-located events include DeviceTalks Boston, which focuses on medical devices, and the inaugural Digital Transformation Forum. which will focus on manufacturing. Registration is now open for the Robotics Summit.

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

The post Autopicker wins 2024 RBR50 Application of the Year for Brightpick appeared first on The Robot Report.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

See Agility at the Robotics Summit

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

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

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

Registration is now open for the Robotics Summit & Expo.

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MassRobotics recently hosted a Robotics in AgTech event, bringing together innovators and industry leaders to explore challenges and solutions in the agriculture industry.

The event served as a catalyst for discussions and offered a glimpse into the transformative potential of robotics for farming, said the Boston-based organization.

Danfoss discusses AgTech industry challenges

The event kicked off with a presentation by Peter Bleday, senior director and head of the Autonomy Business Unit at Danfoss, who provided strategic insights into the challenges and opportunities shaping agricultural technologies and markets.

From precision agriculture to sustainable farming practices, Bleday delved into the industry’s evolving landscape and highlighted the pivotal role of technology in driving innovation and addressing pressing agricultural challenges.

Bleday led a discussion with the following panelists:

• Katie Stebbins, executive director of the Tufts Food & Nutrition Innovation Institute
• Patrick Varley, the product marketing manager for robotics at Mitsubishi Electric
• Otto Gryschek, global director of strategy and operations for chemicals and agriculture at McKinsey & Co.
• AJ Perez, founder and CEO of Grow Clean Group

The speakers shared experiences, from entrepreneurship to food sustainability, and talked about how robotics can address many of today’s agriculture challenges. They also discussed issues of trust, innovation, and the evolving landscape of agricultural technology, offering insights for stakeholders across the agricultural value chain.

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

Building trust and partnerships

One of the central themes of the event was the importance of trust in agricultural partnerships. The panelists highlighted the challenge of gaining the trust of farmers, who are inherently risk-averse due to the unpredictable nature of their profession.

Traditional channels of government outreach and recommendations were deemed insufficient, with community-driven approaches and farmer-to-farmer networks seen as more effective in building trust.

The discussion underscored the value of collaboration between established industry players and startups. While startups bring agility and innovation to the table, established companies offer brand trust and resources to scale effectively.

The panelists emphasized the need for open dialogue and partnerships to drive meaningful change within the agricultural ecosystem.

Integrating AgTech and overcoming barriers to adoption

The panelists acknowledged the critical role of technology in driving innovation within agriculture. They identified startups as more nimble and capable of developing and deploying cutting-edge solutions rapidly than established companies.

However, the panel also emphasized the need for startups to understand the unique needs and challenges of farmers, as well as the importance of case studies and testimonials in showcasing the value of their offerings.

While technological advancements hold immense promise for the agricultural sector, barriers to adoption remain. Farmers often require significant changes to their existing workflows to fully use new technologies.

The panelists also discussed the need for systems that seamlessly integrate into farmers’ operations and highlighted the importance of large-scale test farms for validating innovations at scale.

Panelists discuss challenges at the Signature Series event on Robotics in AgTech. Source: MassRobotics

Startup showcase: Innovations from the ground up

Several AgTech startups showcased their technologies aimed at revolutionizing agriculture. 

• Tyler Niday, the co-founder and CEO of Bonsai Robotics, brought a wealth of experience in robotics and agriculture to the discussion. Having led the development of innovative vision-based and autonomous solutions at Blue River Technology and John Deere, he highlighted the significance of startups in advancing precision agriculture. Niday also discussed Bonsai Robotics’ focus on creating affordable and high-performing autonomy systems tailored for smaller and mid-sized farms. By using monocular cameras and deep learning models, the company aimed to address the challenges of orchard farming and similar environments. Niday emphasized the importance of customer feedback, strong relationships, and iterative testing in navigating the cyclical nature of agriculture and ensuring product-market fit.
• Carl Palme, founder of Boundless Robotics, presented his mission to enable effortless home food cultivation. With AI and automation, the startup’s system addressed urban dwellers’ challenges by offering easy-to-use, sustainable solutions. Initially targeting cannabis cultivation, Palme said it aims to provide pesticide-free, consistent strains inaccessible in urban settings. Priced at $1,500, Boundless Robotics’ system promises a quick return on investment. Palme stated that the company is committed to sustainability and legalization, aiming to disrupt the black market while addressing food scarcity issues.
• Matt Rosen, founder of Haystack Ag, introduced its innovative soil-carbon measurement system tailored for growers and carbon markets. Addressing the challenge of costly and labor-intensive soil-carbon verification, Haystack Ag said it can reduce costs and increasing throughput. The company claimed that its technology can provide highly accurate data crucial for carbon-offset markets. Its business model focuses on selling carbon testing services to carbon market intermediaries, contributing to the scalability of carbon sequestration initiatives globally. 
• Kent Cavender-Bares, founder and CEO of Rowbot, presented its row-crop farming robot tailored for large-scale agriculture. Inefficient use of nitrogen fertilizer poses a challenge, so the company plans deliver nitrogen fertilizer at the right time for the crop. Its patented technology allows for precise application between rows with minimal clearance, optimizing plant treatment. With advanced prototypes tested on hundreds of real fields and a recent agreement with a major cooperative in Iowa, Rowbot said it is poised for commercialization, signaling significant market potential.
• Onder Odemir, founder CEO of Ubiros Inc., introduced soft grippers tailored for the food industry, addressing the challenge of delicate item handling without the need for human labor. With a focus on affordability and versatility, Ubiros offers a solution to the labor shortage in food packaging. The company’s grippers are electric-powered, lightweight, and capable of handling items such as peaches, tomatoes, and cucumbers with care, making them suitable for a range of agricultural and food industry applications. Odemir noted the importance of dexterity and affordability in robotic end effectors, positioning the grippers as a valuable tool for farmers and food processors seeking efficient and gentle handling solutions.
• Ahmad Zameli, CEO of Untill, introduced its indoor vertical farm, which he said can reduce the food supply chain from eight days days to under 24 hours, extending product shelf life and cutting carbon emissions by over 30%. The proprietary technology enables high-density planting, resulting in six times the productivity of traditional vertical farms. Untill plans to scale through partnerships and franchising, aiming to improve access to fresh produce.

Matthew Rosen, CEO of Haystack at AgTech event. Source: MassRobotics

See MassRobotics at the Robotics Summit

The Robotics in AgTech event provided a platform for stakeholders to gain valuable insights into the latest advancements and emerging trends in the agriculture industry. The event fostered collaboration, paving the way for future partnerships and initiatives aimed at driving innovation in AgTech.

MassRobotics said it remains committed to driving innovation in agriculture and leveraging the power of technology to create a more sustainable and resilient food system. 

At the Robotics Summit & Expo, MassRobotics will host a pavilion with the 10 startups in its Accelerator Program. They will exhibit on the show floor and discuss their experiences in a session on May 1 at 4:15 p.m. ET.

For the second year in a row, MassRobotics Form & Function Robotics Challenge participants will show their prototypes on the expo floor. In the Engineering Theater at noon on Thursday, May 2, the organization will name the winners from among the university teams from around the world.

In addition, MassRobotics will also be holding a Robotics Engineering Career Fair from 3:30 to 6:00 p.m. on May 2 in Boston. The career fair will draw from the general robotics and artificial intelligence community, as well as from Robotics Summit attendees.

Past co-located career fairs have drawn more than 800 candidates, and event organizers said they expect even more people at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center this year. MassRobotics is a strategic partner of WTWH Media, which produces the Robotics Summit and The Robot Report.

The Robotics Engineering Career Fair welcomes recent graduates and seasoned engineers, computer scientists, vision specialists, mechatronics experts, AI professionals, and more, said MassRobotics. Candidates can register here for $15.

The Robotics Summit will be co-located with DeviceTalks, an event focused on medical devices, and the inaugural Digital Transformation Forum. Registration is now open for the event.

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I believe 2024 will be remembered as the year when the surgical robotics sector — not just one company — planted both feet on the ground, slowly rose up, and stood tall in the medical device industry.

Why? I’ll give you five reasons:

1. FDA approval of the da Vinci 5

Intuitive’s da Vinci 5 is the device developer’s fifth-generation system. | Credit: Intuitive Surgical

 

The approval and slow release of the next-generation da Vinci 5 reasserted Intuitive Surgical’s dominance. It may have also changed the business.

In our DeviceTalks Weekly interview, Joe Mullings, chair and CEO of The Mullings Group, an executive search firm that has worked extensively in the sector, said competitors building large surgical robotic units will have a difficult time keeping up with the da Vinci 5’s new features. 

But the bigger impact may be a smaller footprint and new leasing arrangement that could open up markets in smaller healthcare facilities to Intuitive.

“Robotic-assisted surgery-as-a-service is what Intuitive is pushing here,” Mullings said.

The interview is available on DeviceTalks.com, a sibling site to The Robot Report, or the DeviceTalks YouTube channel.

2. The emergence of smaller consoles

CMR Surgical’s Versius surgical robotics system | Credit: CMR Surgical

 

Intuitive’s move isn’t likely to impede companies that have built — and are obtaining regulatory approval for — smaller systems that open up the market for surgical robotic systems.

On May 2, I’ll talk with the senior executive team at CMR Surgical — CEO Supratim Bose, Chief Medical Officer Mark Slack, and Chief Technology Officer Luke Hares — about their commercial plans for Versius. The modular and portable robot can be moved from one operating room to another and has been used to perform more than 20,000 surgeries across seven specialties.

Co-founders Slack and Hares “created a system that could be adapted to any operating room,” Bose told MassDevice. “The hospitals, in terms of resources and investments overall for the life of this system, find Versius more of a value to them.”

Earlier this year, Virtual Incision grabbed national headlines by sending a version of its MIRA mobile surgical robotic system to the International Space Station. The publicity surrounding this news focused attention on the company’s true goal of making every operating room a surgical robotic suite.

In a DeviceTalks Weekly interview, CEO John Murphy said Virtual Incision’s robotic arm, which is fastened to the surgical table and doesn’t require a base console like other systems, will make robotics possible for integrated delivery networks (IDNs) and ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) that can’t currently afford or accommodate a standard surgical robot.

Similarly, Distalmotion is poised for success with its Dexter robot, which doesn’t require a dedicated room and has disposable instruments that don’t require sterilization after use. CEO Greg Roche, who will speak at DeviceTalks Boston, said the smaller system puts the company in a position to go where patients are seeking care.

3. The drive for remote connection

Virtual Incision’s space excursion aside, surgical robotics companies recognize the importance of remote connection. At DeviceTalks Boston, we’ll have presentations from Intuitive and Medtronic focusing on the long-distance reach of their systems.

But we’re also seeing the emergence of an infrastructure built to support remote surgery. To some, 5G presents the conduit for steady connection. But serial entrepreneur Yulun Wang, who could be described as the founder of the surgical robotics sector, co-founded Sovato Health to develop a different network employing existing infrastructure of fiber-optic cables.

Wang has a knack for getting ahead of trends. He founded Computer Motion in 1990, five years before the launch of Intuitive. The companies would merge 13 years later as a resolution of a patent dispute, freeing Wang to co-found telehealth company nTouch, which was acquired by Teladoc in 2020.

Wang and Sovato co-founder and CEO Cynthia Perazzo said patients are comfortable with remote care, thanks in part to the pandemic. Regulators and hospitals also see the need for surgeons to extend their reach.

“A third of U.S. counties don’t have a single surgeon,” Perazzo said in a recent DeviceTalks Weekly interview.

On the technical side, Sovato execs said the current telecommunication network can handle the traffic. Wang recalled that the world’s first transatlantic surgery performed on a Computer Motion system in 2000 ran on an ATM line monitored by 15 engineers. Today, fiber-optic cables are plentiful.

Finally, robotic surgery companies are building systems that can be controlled remotely. In a DeviceTalks Boston keynote, Brian Miller, executive vice president and chief digital officer at Intuitive Surgical, will cover many of da Vinci’s 5’s new features, including its potential for remote surgery.

At the close of the conference, Rajit Kamal, vice president and general manager of surgical robotics at Medtronic, will demonstrate the remote functionality of Hugo RAS in a joint keynote for attendees of DeviceTalks Boston and the co-located Robotics Summit & Expo.

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

4. The power of AI

The ongoing adoption of artificial intelligence will certainly accelerate the development of robot-assisted surgery. AI already has made a massive impact on the medical device industry.

Semiconductor chip giant NVIDIA added a tanker of gasoline to that fire at its 2024 GPU Technology Conference (GTC), launching close to two dozen new AI-powered, healthcare-focused tools and announcing partnerships with GE Healthcare and Johnson & Johnson.

NVIDIA already had been working with Asensus Surgical and Medtronic.

Intuitive’s Miller and Medtronic’s Kamal both intend to cover AI-powered functionality in their DeviceTalks Boston talks.

5. Experienced competition emerging

Quantum Surgical’s Epione system. | Credit: Quantum Surgical

 

The surgical robotics sector has been around enough to produce executives who have enjoyed successful outcomes. Now they’re back for more.

Former leaders from Auris Surgical Robotics, for example, are leading startups like Moon Surgical and Noah Medical.

Before becoming Distalmotion’s CEO, Roche served as global president for robotics and technology at Zimmer Biomet, where he led the successful global launch of the ROSA Robotic Knee System.

Quantum Surgical CEO Bertin Nahum led an earlier part of the ROSA story. Nahum founded one of the first successful surgical robotics companies, Medtech S.A., which was sold to Zimmer Biomet in 2016.

Nahum will speak at DeviceTalks Boston about Quantum’s Epione system, an open robotic system that brings image-guided precision to minimally invasive cancer ablation.

Finally, Stryker, one of the more experienced players in surgical robotics and the leader in hard-tissue systems, could be considering a move into soft-tissue robotics.

“We believe we are a great robotics organization,” said Spencer Stiles, group president for orthopedics and spine at Stryker, in an upcoming DeviceTalks podcast. “We remain a passionate M&A company. And so you can imagine our adjacencies, that’s an area that we continue to assess. There’s some neat technology out there for sure.”

Erik Todd, vice president and general manager of robotics and enabling technology at Stryker, will give an update on the MAKO System at DeviceTalks Boston.

So this is why we focused so much of DeviceTalks Boston on surgical robotics, but even I’m surprised at the pace at which the space is moving

If you had asked me in January, I’m not sure I would have said we’d see a new da Vinci approved by the FDA, a surgical robotics system launched into space, and a mid-tier player like Karl Storz looking to change the game by buying a small, but tested, surgical robotics company like Asensus Surgical.

This is 2024. Almost anything can happen. Join us at DeviceTalks Boston to find out what’s next.

The post 5 things that could shape surgical robotics in the next decade appeared first on The Robot Report.

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey (blue jacket, center), with Lt. Gov. Kimberly Driscoll, MassTech CEO Carolyn Kirk, Undersecretary of Economic Foundations Ashley Stolba, and MassRobotics’ team in Boston. Source: Office of the Governor

To kick off National Robotics Week, Massachusetts Governor Maura T. Healey today continued her Mass Leads Road Show with visits to MassRobotics and the North Andover High School.  

“Massachusetts is proud to be home to one of the lead robotics hubs in the world, and it’s essential that we continue to lengthen this lead through targeted investments like the Mass Leads Act,” said Gov. Healey. “It was great to see the innovative work being done in robotics from high school students in North Andover to cutting-edge startups at MassRobotics.” 

“We are excited to be joined by the governor, lieutenant governor, and staff members to celebrate National Robotics Week,” stated Tom Ryden, executive director of MassRobotics. “Robotics is an important industry in the state, employing over 5,000 people and shipping thousands of robots every month.”

“Massachusetts is truly the hub of robotics and recognized as a world leader,” he added. “With the continued support in the Mass Leads Act, this exciting industry will continue to grow in size and impact throughout the state.”

MassRobotics describes itself as “the largest independent robotics hub dedicated to accelerating innovation and adoption in the field of robotics.” The Boston-based organization recently kicked off Mass Robotics Accelerator, powered by Mass Tech Collaborative, to support 10 startups through an intensive 13-week program.

During their visit, Gov. Healey and Lt. Gov.  Kim Driscoll toured a lab space and met some of the startups housed at the facility. They also saw a classroom that is used for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education. 

Lt. Gov. Driscoll and Gov. Healey with CEO Ian Goodine and CTO Ethan Walko, co-founders of Accelerator startup rStream. Source: MassRobotics

See Accelerator startups at Robotics Summit & Expo

MassRobotics will host a pavilion with the startups in its accelerator program at the 2024 Robotics Summit & Expo, which will be on May 1 and 2 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. The startups will exhibit on the show floor and discuss their experiences in a session on Wednesday, May 1, at 4:15 p.m. EDT.

MassRobotics, a strategic partner of WTWH Media, which produces The Robot Report and the Robotics Summit, will also host an Engineering Career Fair and announce its Form & Function Challenge winners. Registration is now open for the Robotics Summit & Expo.

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Massachusetts invests in robotics leadership

Earlier this year, the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (MassTech) launched a new $5 million initiative to boost the robotics sector across the state. The new department, established within the Innovation Institute at MassTech, is focused on supporting robotics research and development, testing, and workforce development.

“The investments proposed in the Mass Leads Act will help Massachusetts secure our leadership in the robotics sector,” said Yvonne Hao, secretary of economic development for Massachusetts. “The proposed robotics capital program at MassTech and reauthorization of the R&D Fund will drive innovation by funding research, commercialization, and training across the state.”

“MassTech’s mission is to create opportunities for growth in the Massachusetts innovation economy, and that definitely includes robotics,” said Carolyn Kirk, CEO of MassTech. “Our Innovation Institute implements a unique model for the state that spurs economic growth — together with industry leaders, academic researchers, and policymakers. MassTech is proud to help drive the competitiveness of tech and innovation through strategic investments and partnerships.”

The Innovation Institute has received state funding. Source: MassTech Collaborative

Governor visits North Andover High School, new Amazon warehouse

In North Andover, Gov. Healey met with the high school robotics club and congratulated the team ahead of the Vex Robotics World Championships, which they will compete in later this month. She saw its robotics projects and presented a proclamation for National Robotics Week.

“There’s a reason why 1 in 4 robotics patents are earned by Massachusetts inventors – it’s because we prioritize giving this industry the tools it needs to thrive,” said Driscoll. “Our administration is excited to continue supporting robotics entrepreneurs, as well as expanding opportunities for students to participate in STEM education and see themselves in a future career like robotics.”

Healey and Driscoll also visited a new Amazon warehouse in North Andover with 4 million sq. ft. of space. It cost $400 million to build and will employ 1,500 people, according to Amazon. The facility will also include thousands of robots, reported The Boston Globe.

“It’s applied robotics,” said Tye Brady, chief technologist at Amazon. “They’re not doing backflips or dances out there on the floor — I love those, I get it — but they’re doing the job of moving goods on time and very reliably.”

Brady will deliver a keynote on Amazon’s robotics strategy on May 1 at the Robotics Summit & Expo.

Massachusetts is committed to continuing its leadership in artificial intelligence and robotics and to retaining more of the talent that comes out its many educational institutions, the governor told The Robot Report.

North Andover is off to Dallas!! Huge congratulations to 8568A Knights (consisting of Jack, Noah, Ajaya, Niko, Sam, and Grant) and 8568C Cowboys (consisting of David, Alex, Nik, Soham, and Ellis) on qualifying for the World Championship! @NASupt @chetjackson22 @NA_Athletics pic.twitter.com/pNgaYrYVvz

— Knights Robotics (@Knights_8568) February 28, 2024

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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.

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

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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The Intelligent Surgical Unit powers the Senhance surgical robot system. | Source: Asensus Surgical

Asensus Surgical Inc. today announced that it has entered into a non-binding letter of intent for medical device company Karl Storz SE to acquire it.

The agreement enables Karl Storz to engage in due diligence and negotiations over a potential acquisition of the surgical robot maker. Asensus and Karl Storz began ollaborating on plans for development and marketing just over a year ago.

Entry into the letter of intent (LOI) follows an extensive period of consideration of strategic alternatives, stated Asensus. That included potential collaborations and licensing transactions, a “go-it-alone” strategy reliant upon significant fundraising, a sale of the company, or additional development transactions.

Instead, the company’s board approved the LOI with Karl Storz, which includes a proposal to acquire 100% of the issued and outstanding shares of Asensus common stock at 35¢ per share in cash. That represents a 66.7% premium to the closing price of Asensus stock on April 2, 2024. Karl Storz said that the proposed price represents its “best and final offer.”

Asensus developing Senhance, Intelligent Surgical Unit

Research Triangle Park, N.C-based Asensus is developing the Senhance surgical robot. It has also developed the Intelligent Surgical Unit (ISU) for Senhance.

The company said it designed ISU as a real-time intraoperative surgical image analytics platform. It uses “augmented intelligence” to help reduce surgical variability.

Asensus unveiled its the next-generation LUNA robot in February 2023. The integrated digital system features a next-generation surgical platform and instruments, plus real-time intraoperative clinical intelligence. Its final component, a secure cloud platform, applies machine learning to deliver clinical insights.

The company suggested last year that it targeted 2025 for U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance for LUNA. In November, Asensus inked a manufacturing deal for its platform.

In January 2024, the company showed LUNA off to surgeons, conducting an in vivo lab evaluation of the next-generation surgical robot. 

More details on the LOI

The letter of intent provides that, during an exclusivity period of up to 10 weeks, Asensus won’t engage in negotiations for alternative transactions. During that period, Karl Storz intends to conduct diligence as the companies negotiate a merger. Both companies have the right to terminate pursuit of the proposed transaction.

In connection with the LOI, Asensus entered into a fully secured promissory note or bridge loan with Karl Storz. This allows the company to receive a loan of up to $20 million from Karl Storz to support operations through the exclusivity period and beyond.

The companies said they plan to work during the exclusivity period to negotiate and finalize a merger agreement. If agreed, Asensus said it would then plan to quickly secure stockholder approval.

Asensus said it can’t provide any assurances of a final agreement with Karl Storz.

Asensus Surgical to speak at Robotics Summit

Dustin Vaughan, vice president of robotics research and development at Asensus, will be speaking at the Robotics Summit & Expo, which takes place on May 1-2 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.

His talk, “Leveraging Real-Time Data Insights in the Operating Room” will explore the development and introduction of cutting-edge technologies, sensing modalities, and real-time data collection capabilities of the LUNA Surgical Platform and the practical implementation of those capabilities.

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. The event will be co-located with DeviceTalks, an event focused on medical devices, and the inaugural Digital Transformation Forum. Registration is now open for the event.

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

Editor’s Note: This article was syndicated from MassDevice, a sibling site to The Robot Report.

The post Karl Storz enters talks to acquire surgical robot developer Asensus Surgical appeared first on The Robot Report.

Digital transformation is becoming a major concern for engineers across industries. Source: Adobe Stock

Over the past year, I’ve spent a lot of time speaking with manufacturers about their digital transformation projects. They all have very different stories to tell because their application needs are distinct. But whether it’s a food manufacturer, a beverage producer, an automaker or a machine builder, they all have one thing in common: The need for community.

Turns out, digital transformation can be a lonely road where engineers are given a directive to “go digital,” and then left on their own to figure it out.

This exact scenario is happening at a large consumer packaged goods (CPG) company that makes many things, including toothpaste and dish detergent. An individual in charge of plant systems told me that he needs help sorting out where to start, what technologies to use, and who to involve in the process.

“Having a connection with people to bounce ideas off, or just understand what others have done to solve common digital transformation problems, would be helpful,” he said.

Attendees of Design World’s first annual Digital Transformation Forum, happening May 1-2, 2024 in Boston, will get that personal storytelling from some major manufacturers. Two of those in attendance include Sikorsky Lockheed Martin and ALTA Refrigeration, both sharing technology implementations that solve engineering and business problems while optimizing the way they work.

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Sikorsky’s digital transformation story

Sikorsky makes commercial and military aircraft, including the best-in-class Black Hawk helicopter. It needed to correct years of manually setting thresholds that have contributed to alert fatigue on operators. The company needed a way to streamline actionable alerts in a busy production environment.

Together with technology partner Strategic Maintenance Solutions, Sikorsky built a machine learning tool that automates the threshold-setting process for industrial metric data and delivers the right information to the right user at the right time. One of the key takeaways from this session is that you don’t have to be a data scientist to take action and find value with AI tools.

ALTA Refrigeration will outline a very different scenario that includes the adoption of an edge control architecture and the message queuing telemetry transport (MQTT) machine-to-machine communication protocol to completely change its business model.

The company has been designing and installing refrigeration systems across the U.S. for more than 45 years. For a long time, they were large, custom-designed systems that used a central machine room to deliver refrigerant to various facility areas through long, overhead piping runs.

Now, with modular refrigeration control units, ALTA can monitor its entire install base in minutes and energy usage per unit. When an alarm occurs, the system creates an interactive timeline of events. Using data analytics with remote monitoring improves serviceability, scalability, customer support, and operational efficiency.

Connect with the engineering community

Those are just two examples of the presentations at this live event. Attendees will also be able to interact with thought leaders from Intellic Integration, MIT, Deloitte, Siemens, PTC, and more. Networking is encouraged via a welcome reception and a mix and mingle with attendees from the two co-located events, the Robotics Summit & Expo and DeviceTalks Boston, to provide ample opportunity to meet engineers from other industries.

You can freely exchange ideas and make new connections at this forum. More importantly, it’s the start of your new digital transformation community. If you’re an engineer, technology decision-maker or an executive on a journey to modernize manufacturing, you need to be here.

The inspiration from your peers can lead to new ideas for your organization and, ultimately, innovation that will make your organization more competitive in the market.

Editor’s note: This article is syndicated from Design World, a sibling site to The Robot Report, and the Digital Transformation Forum is co-located with the Robotics Summit & Expo. Registration is now open.

About the author

Stephanie Neil is an executive editor at WTWH Media specializing in digital transformation, automation, AI, analytics, IoT, cybersecurity, robotics, simulation, and workforce issues. She shares the end-user perspective on the business value of operations processes.

Neil previously worked at CPG Next, OEM Magazine, and Automation World. She is based in Scituate, Mass.

The post Engineers emboldened by digital transformation community appeared first on The Robot Report.

Harmonic Drive will discuss the requirements for compact, power-dense actuation for reliable robotics. Credit: Adobe Stock

Next-generation collaborative robots, mobile manipulators, and even humanoid robots need motion control systems that can operate in space-constrained designs and that provide high performance and reliability. At the 2024 Robotics Summit & Expo, Harmonic Drive LLC will discuss how to address this challenge.

Conventional actuators and cabling can require additional functionality that can compromise power density, noted the company. Brian Coyne, vice president of engineering at Harmonic Drive, will offer a potential solution in a session on “Developing a Low-Profile, Power-Dense Actuator to Meet the Demands of Current Robot Designs.”

The Enabling Technologies discussion will be at 11:30 a.m. ET on the first day of the Robotics Summit, Wednesday, May 1, in Room 257A in the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.

Coyne will explain how Harmonic Drive developed its LPA-20 actuator to optimize power density while integrating a servo drive with options for CANopen or EtherCAT communication protocols. He will also welcome questions from attendees.

About Brian Coyne and Harmonic Drive

Coyne is vice president of engineering at Harmonic Drive. He has applied his mechatronics expertise to helping the company develop and launch its mini-actuator line. Coyne’s team is currently working on new product lines with advanced features.

Before coming to Harmonic Drive, Coyne spent 15 years at Assembly and Automation Technology (AAT). Prior to that, he attended Tufts University, where he developed his appreciation and understanding for custom machine design and processes. Coyne holds a BSME and a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering (MSME) from Tufts University.

With more than 60 years of experience, Harmonic Drive makes high-precision, zero-backlash strain-wave and planetary gears. The Beverly, Mass.-based company also provides precision servo actuators, gearheads, and gear components sets for Fortune 500 companies and businesses of all sizes.

Harmonic Drive components support industrial and surgical robotics, spaceflight applications, semiconductor manufacturing, factory automation, and medical diagnostics. Robotics Summit & Expo attendees can learn about its motion-control technologies at Booth 101 in Hall C.

Register for the Robotics Summit & Expo

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.

Keynotes will feature luminaries from Agility Robotics, Amazon Robotics, Teradyne, Disney Research, and Medtronic. The event will also include various networking opportunities, a Women in Robotics breakfast, a startup showcase, and more!

New to the summit is the RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards Gala. It will include a cocktail hour, dinner, and a chance to hear from the Robot of the Year, Startup of the Year, and Application of the Year winners. Each RBR50 winner will receive two complimentary tickets to the Robotics Summit and RBR50 gala. A limited number of tickets is available, but they’re selling fast!

The Robotics Summit will be co-located with DeviceTalks, an event focused on medical devices, and the inaugural Digital Transformation Forum. Registration is now open for the event.

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

The post Harmonic Drive to explain how designers can optimize motion control at Robotics Summit appeared first on The Robot Report.

Women working within the industry often find they might be one of the only ones on their team or even at their company. This can be an isolating experience, making it difficult for women in robotics to find a community to support them. 

The Robotics Summit & Expo, which takes place at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center on May 1-2, will include its first Women in Robotics Breakfast. This networking event will provide female engineers and roboticists an opportunity to connect with others in the industry. It will be at 8:00 a.m. ET on Day 2 of the show.

The event will also feature a conversation with Dr. Kate Darling, a research scientist at MIT and leader of the Ethics & Society research team at the Boston Dynamics AI Institute. Her award-winning work explores the societal and legal implications of robotics. She’s the author of The New Breed: What Our History with Animals Reveals about Our Future with Robots.

At the Women in Robotics Breakfast, Darling will discuss her research, the state of women in robotics, and advice for those getting started in their careers.

Tickets can be purchased before the event for $25 and are open to all-access pass holders, speakers, and sponsors.

More about the 2024 Robotics Summit & Expo

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.

Keynotes will feature luminaries from Agility Robotics, Amazon Robotics, Teradyne, Disney Research, and Medtronic. The event will also include various networking opportunities, a startup showcase, and more!

New to the summit is the RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards Gala. It will include a cocktail hour, dinner, and a chance to hear from the Robot of the Year, Startup of the Year, and Application of the Year winners. Each RBR50 winner will receive two complimentary tickets to the Robotics Summit and RBR50 gala. A limited number of tickets is available, but they’re selling fast!

The Robotics Summit will be co-located with DeviceTalks, an event focused on medical devices, and the inaugural Digital Transformation Forum. Registration is now open for the event.

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

The post Inaugural Women in Robotics Breakfast to be held at Robotics Summit appeared first on The Robot Report.

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

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

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

9. SMC adds grippers for cobots from Universal Robots

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

5. Mobile Industrial Robots launches MiR1200 autonomous pallet jack

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

4. Reshape Automation aims to reduce barriers of robotics adoption

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

3. Mercedes-Benz testing Apollo humanoid

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

2. NVIDIA announces new robotics products at GTC 2024

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

1. Schneider Electric unveils new Lexium cobots at MODEX 2024

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

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