Attendees and speakers at a food robotics event in San Francisco discussed the biggest challenges facing developers and users of robots and AI for cooking, delivery, and tracking.

The IFR shared its annual look at global and regional demand for robots in manufacturing in conjunction with Automate/ProMat 2019. Slowdowns affected growth in some regions, but improving software and hardware capabilities could lead to new highs.

One of the things I like about attending Schunk’s annual two-day International Expert Days conference is that it covers a range of topics. From conversations with speakers, exhibitors, and fellow attendees, I get a feel for what users need and the challenges robot and gripper makers face in meeting those needs. Another attraction is that…

Denmark is a country with less than 6 million people but a very successful working robotics cluster that performs as a funder, equalizer and instigator. Denmark is 6th in global robot density (a measure of the number of multi-purpose industrial robots per 10,000 employees in the manufacturing sector) behind Korea, Singapore, Germany, Japan, and Sweden,…

Twenty-seven startups raised money in June to the tune of $2.1 billion, another great month for robotics fundings! Also during June there were ten acquisitions and two IPOs. See below for details. The top robotics fundings were: Rockwell (NYSE:ROK) made a $1 billion equity investment in PTC (NASDAQ:PTC), an automation control software provider to government…

Automatica 2018 is one of Europe’s largest robotics and automation-related trade shows and a destination for global roboticists and business executives to view new products. It was held June 19-22 in Munich and had 890 exhibitors and 46,000 visitors (up 7% from the previous show). The International Symposium on Robotics (ISR) was held in conjunction…

  Twenty-seven startups were funded in May for a total of $2.5 billion. The top five were: Cruise Holdings announced a two-phase funding by SoftBank Vision Fund totaling $2.25 billion. $900 million will be funded right away. Future funding of $1.35 billion is contingent on two things: regulatory approval and at the time when Cruise AVs…

Ocado (LON:OCDO), the UK leader in home-delivered groceries from robot-run distribution centers, has established a licensing deal with US grocery chain Kroger (NYSE:KR) whereby Kroger will take a 5% stake in Ocado – an investment valued at ~$247.5 million and Ocado will help Kroger set up systems to manage online ordering, fulfillment and delivery operations utilizing Ocado-proven technologies. Ocado will see…

E-commerce sales for 2017 were $453.5 billion in the U.S. and $1.1 trillion in China, an increase of 16.0% and 32.6% respectively over 2016. This upward trend is projected to continue for the next many years. Consequently flexibility and an ability to handle an ever-increasing number of parcels is of concern to warehousing, fulfillment and…

Twenty startups were funded in April 2018. Fifteen disclosed transaction amounts totaling $828 million of which the $620 million to SenseTime, the Alibaba-funded Chinese deep learning and facial recognition software provider focused on smart self-driving vehicle systems, was by far the largest. Year to date, fundings total $2.3 billion! Seven acquisitions also occurred in April.…

In a surprise but smart move, Teradyne (NYSE:TER), the American test solutions provider that acquired Universal Robots in 2015 and Energid Technologies earlier in 2018, acquired Danish MiR (Mobile Industrial Robots) for $148 million with an additional $124 million predicated on very achievable milestones between now and 2020. MiR was just returning from celebrating its 300%…

MODEX, ProMat and CeMAT are the biggest global material handling and logistics supply chain tech trade shows. But as I walked the corridors of this year’s MODEX in Atlanta, I was particularly aware of the widening disparity between the old and new. Stats: Material Handling and Logistics The 2018 MHI Annual Industry Report found that…

In the constantly changing landscape of today’s global digital workspace, AI’s presence grows in almost every industry. Retail giants like Amazon and Alibaba are using algorithms written by machine learning software to add value to the customer experience. Machine learning is also prevalent in the new Service Robotics world as robots transition from blind, dumb…

Twenty-four startups were funded in March 2018 raising a combined total of $350 million. That brings the 3-month total to $1.5 billion! There was an additional funding of $2.5 billion to JD Logistics, an 81.4%-owned spin-off that is the logistics arm of JD, China’s 2nd largest online retailer. Funding came from Hillhouse, Sequoia, China Merchants,…

Chinese artificial intelligence and robot maker Geek+ (Beijing Geekplus Technology) will be demonstrating its line of picking, moving and sortation robots April 9-12 in Atlanta, GA at MODEX, the largest supply-chain trade show in the Americas. Geek+ is a leading provider — and China’s #1 supplier — of warehousing and logistics solutions in China and…

Quietly, and under the radar with not a single press release from either party, Teradyne (NYSE:TER), the company that acquired co-bot maker Universal Robots in 2015, acquired another robotic property, Energid, a Cambridge, MA-based integrator, engineering firm and developer of robot control, simulation and machine vision software. No financial details regarding the acquisition were disclosed. Energid’s…

In a 2+ hour talk that filled the Keynote Hall and spillover rooms at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center and had thousands of people in line for hours before, Nvidia’s CEO Jen-Hsun Huang, in characteristic jeans, leather jacket, and humble humor, described the world of graphics processing units (GPUs) with brilliant images and memorable…

Robotics is undergoing fundamental change in three core areas: collaboration, autonomous mobility and increasing intelligence. Autonomous mobility technology is entering the industrial vehicle marketplace of AGVs, forklifts and tugs with new products, better navigation technologies and lower costs. Forecasters Grandview Research and IDTechEx suggest that autonomous forklifts and tugs will emerge as the standard from…

Tencent, Alibaba, Baidu and JD.com from China are in a global competition with Google/Alphabet, Apple, Facebook, Walmart and Amazon from the USA and SoftBank from Japan. All are agressively searching for talent, intellectual property, market share, logistics and supply chain technology, and presence all around the world. These leading tech-savvy companies have many things in…

Schunk annually puts on a service robotics program at their factory auditorium in Lauffin, Germany, a small town 50 miles north of Stuttgart. This was the fourth or fifth one I’ve attended and the conference has migrated to a slightly bigger auditorium containing seating and exhibitor space with adjoining registration, cloakroom, restaurant, and snack areas.…

In 2010 I wrote that there were three sponsored research projects to solve the problem of safely inspecting and maintaining high voltage transmission lines using robotics. Existing 2010 methods ranged from humans crawling the lines to helicopters flying close-by and scanning, to cars and jeeps with people and binoculars attempting to scan with the human eye.…

Twenty different startups were funded in February, raising $569 million; a substantial two-month start for the new year. Five acquisitions were reported during the month, while the IPO front had no activity whatsoever. CB Insights said that China dominated the funding of AI-related startups during 2017. So far in 2018, the China funding percentage appears…