The Robot Report Podcast

ProMat 2023 robotics recap

Mike Oitzman — Fri, 24 Mar 2023 12:00:09 +0000

Editors from The Robot Report attended the 2023 ProMat event in Chicago. In episode 109 of The Robot Report Podcast, co-hosts Steve Crowe and Mike Oitzman discuss the news and stories from the event. Also in this week’s episode, Mike highlights news related to the future of AI and robotics from the recent Nvidia GTC event.

ProMat 2023 Review

New robotics companies at the show included:

Mushiny
Multiway Robotics
Quiktron
SEER
Tuskrobots
Slip Robotics
Pickle Robots

The most interesting robotics solutions at the show:

Autonomous forklifts were everywhere on the show floor
Agility Robotics demoed the latest iteration of Digit robot
RightHand Robotics’ demoed a new suction cup switcher
Boston Dynamics Stretch trailer unloading demo worked well
Slip robotics had a new, novel trailer-loading/unloading AMR-based solution
Locus One Interoperability was a key new feature of LocusOne software
Verve Motion exosuit is a solution to warehouse worker fatigue

For a complete summary of our editor’s picks for robotics at ProMat 2023, check out this story.

Robotics Summit & Expo (May 10-11) returns to Boston

NVIDIA news this week:

Omniverse Cloud for enterprises is now available as a platform as a service (PaaS) for compute-intensive workloads like synthetic data generation.
Issac ROS DP3 release adds new perception capabilities and open-source modules
New LIDAR-based grid localizer package
New people detection support in the NVBLOX package
GPU-accelerated 3D reconstruction for collision avoidance
Updated VSLAM and depth perception GEM
Source release of NITROS, NVIDIAs ROS 2 hardware acceleration implementation
New Isaac ROS benchmark suite built
The Robot Report story on Nvidia GTC
NOTEWORTHY: Fireside chat between Jenson and Ilya Sutskever, Co-founder and Chief Scientist, OpenAI (Nvidia GTC site)

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Silicon Valley Bank collapses and FDIC takes over

Mike Oitzman — Fri, 10 Mar 2023 23:36:03 +0000

Breaking news today regarding the failure and collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, one of the oldest banks in Silicon Valley to be used by generations of technology startups. Steve Crowe and Mike Oitzman discuss the situation and the likely fallout and impact to robotics companies and the venture capital industry that supports them.

Also on the show today we (unrelatedly) interview Rylan Hamilton, cofounder and CEO of 6 River Systems. Mike had the opportunity to sit down with Rylan and talk about Rylan’s start in robotics with Kiva Systems and how he concepted and built 6 River Systems into a leading AMR manufacturer that’s now a major part of the Shopify family.

It’s a great interview about the importance of putting the customer first and starting with a problem, rather than a solution.

Links from today’s show:

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Software development for autonomous vehicles from APEX.AI

Mike Oitzman — Fri, 03 Mar 2023 01:23:03 +0000

On the show today, Steve Crowe and Mike Oitzman discuss breaking news about the uncloaking of Figure.AI, a new humanoid robot company with a mission to create an affordable and ubiquitous humanoid robot.

They also discuss the features of the latest ChatGPT release, which delivers scalable infrastructure to support large enterprise interaction with ChatGPT via API. This formalizes the opportunity for roboticists to programmatically interact with ChatGPT for robotic applications. What will you do with it?

Our featured guest his week is Dejan Pangercic, co-founder and CTO of APEX.AI. Dejan talks about software development for autonomous vehicles and how APEX.AI built a hardened operating system for autonomous vehicles around ROS 2. We discuss uses for APEX.AI in both on-road vehicles and for agriculture.

Episode timeline:

06:37 ChatGPT for roboticists

11:24 Uncloaking of Figure.ai

32:20 Autonomous vehicle news: Waymo starts fully driverless testing in LA, Argo.AI relaunched as Latitude.AI. Tesla FDS recall.

40:02 Interview with Dejan Pangercic

Robotics Summit & Expo (May 10-11) returns to Boston

Links from the show today:

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OLogic’s Ted Larson advises robot makers

Mike Oitzman — Sat, 25 Feb 2023 01:28:13 +0000

In this episode of The Robot Report Podcast, Steve and Mike interview Ted Larson, the co-founder and CEO of OLogic. Since the early 2000s, OLogic has been helping Silicon Valley robotics entrepreneurs design and develop complex robotic solutions. The company has worked on over 200 products during its existence. Ted shares his advice and some tips for conceptualizing and designing a robotic solution.

Ted will be presenting a session titled: “Guerilla Product Development for Robotics” at the Robotics Summit & Expo on Thursday May 11, in Boston MA. Be sure to catch this session at the event.

Robotics Summit & Expo (May 10-11) returns to Boston

Links from today’s show:

If you want to be a guest on an upcoming episode of the podcast, or if you have recommendations for future guests or segment ideas, contact Steve Crowe or Mike Oitzman.

For sponsorship opportunities of The Robot Report Podcast, contact Courtney Nagle for more information.

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Robots and automation at World Ag Expo

Mike Oitzman — Tue, 21 Feb 2023 22:37:58 +0000

In this episode of The Robot Report Podcast, Steve and Mike discuss the state of agriculture automation and review all of the new solutions on display at the recent 2023 World Ag Expo, in Tulare CA.

The episode features short interviews for the show with representatives of the following agricultural robotics companies:

32:06 – Agtonomy CEO and cofounder Tim Bucher

44:16 – Farmwise VP of Sales Todd Rinkenberger

54:06 – Monarch Tractor Director of Product Danny Beck

1:04:11 – Carbon Robotics CEO Paul Mikesell

Robotics Summit & Expo (May 10-11) returns to Boston

Links from today’s show:

If you want to be a guest on an upcoming episode of the podcast, or if you have recommendations for future guests or segment ideas, contact Steve Crowe or Mike Oitzman.

For sponsorship opportunities of The Robot Report Podcast, contact Courtney Nagle for more information.

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ASTM’s Aaron Prather on standards and evaluating new robots

Steve Crowe — Fri, 10 Feb 2023 17:24:13 +0000

Welcome to Episode 104 of The Robot Report Podcast, which brings conversations with robotics innovators straight to you. Join us each week for discussions with leading roboticists, innovative robotics companies and other key members of the robotics community.

In this episode, we discuss a new Soft robotic wearable that restores arm function for people with ALS. The device was prototyped by a team of researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).

The device uses air pressure-driven, soft actuators to help assist in the movement of patients’ arms. The team developed a sensor system that detects the residual activity of the arm and calibrates the appropriate pressurization of the balloon actuator to move the person’s arm smoothly and naturally. The device promises to help restore ALS patient autonomy.

They also discuss a recent story where hoppers at GIANT Food Stores in Hellertown, Pennsylvania were surprised earlier this week, when Marty, an autonomous mobile robot that scans inventory on shelves, was spotted wandering the store’s parking lot. Videos of the rogue robot were posted on social media before it was ushered inside by employees.

Our guest on the podcast this week is Aaron Prather. Aaron is a well-known speaker and evangelist for the robotics industry. Prior to his current role at ASTM as Director, Robotics & Autonomous Systems Programs, he was senior technical advisor for FedEx.

Aaron discusses the current state of robotic standards at ASTM, specifically with the F45 committee work. Aaron also talks about some of the pitfalls that young robotics companies can trip over when attempting to sell their solutions to a large fortune 500 company like FedEx.

Robotics Summit & Expo (May 10-11) returns to Boston

Links from today’s show:

If you want to be a guest on an upcoming episode of the podcast, or if you have recommendations for future guests or segment ideas, contact Steve Crowe or Mike Oitzman.

For sponsorship opportunities of The Robot Report Podcast, contact Courtney Nagle for more information.

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Best robots of CES 2023; Boston Dynamics Atlas video review

Steve Crowe — Sat, 21 Jan 2023 01:44:28 +0000

Welcome to Episode 103 of The Robot Report Podcast, which brings conversations with robotics innovators straight to you. Join us each week for discussions with leading roboticists, innovative robotics companies and other key members of the robotics community.

In this episode, we discuss Mike’s recent adventure at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2023. Steve and Mike recap the event, the types of robots that were at this years event, and difficulties covering so many interesting product.

The podcast features interviews from CES 2023 with:

[25:25] Dan Haddick, Head of Product for Aeolus Robotics
[45:35] Tony Crisp, Chief Marketing Officer for Robosen Robotics
[56:05] Paul Mitchell, President and founder of Indy Autonomous Challenge

Steve and Mike also discuss the capabilities of the Boston Dynamics Atlas robot that are demonstrated the recent video released this week.

Links from today’s show:

If you want to be a guest on an upcoming episode of the podcast, or if you have recommendations for future guests or segment ideas, contact Steve Crowe or Mike Oitzman.

For sponsorship opportunities of The Robot Report Podcast, contact Courtney Nagle for more information.

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2022 in review: the year in robotics

Steve Crowe — Wed, 21 Dec 2022 19:08:38 +0000

Welcome to Episode 102 of The Robot Report Podcast, which brings conversations with robotics innovators straight to you. Join us each week for discussions with leading roboticists, innovative robotics companies and other key members of the robotics community.

In this episode, Mike Oitzman and I recap the year that was in robotics. We recap the biggest stories, moments, trends, successes and failures from the commercial robotics industry in 2022. We also want to hear from you. What will you remember most from the year in robotics? Comment below or leave us a voicemail that could be played on an upcoming episode of the podcast.

Links from today’s show:

If you want to be a guest on an upcoming episode of the podcast, or if you have recommendations for future guests or segment ideas, contact Steve Crowe or Mike Oitzman.

For sponsorship opportunities of The Robot Report Podcast, contact Courtney Nagle for more information.

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Developing policies for cops using robots with lethal force

Steve Crowe — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 19:01:03 +0000

Welcome to Episode 101 of The Robot Report Podcast, which brings conversations with robotics innovators straight to you. Join us each week for discussions with leading roboticists, innovative robotics companies and other key members of the robotics community.

In this episode we discussing San Francisco’s voting around its police department being able to use robots with lethal force in emergencies. After initially voting 8-3 in favor of cops using robots with lethal for as a last-ditch effort, San Francisco supervisors reversed course on Tuesday and unanimously voted to temporarily ban its police department from using robots with lethal force. The issue is being sent back to a committee for further discussion and could be voted on again in the future.

After last week’s 8-3 vote, I spoke to Paul Scharre, vice president and director of studies at the Center for a New American Security. He previously worked in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) where he played a leading role in establishing policies around unmanned and autonomous systems and emerging weapons technologies.

In the interview, Paul details his work at the OSD and describes the process they went through to develop policies around the aforementioned issues. Paul and I dive into what’s going on in San Francisco and how to improve the process of debating, developing and implementing policies around arming police officers with robots with lethal force in emergencies. Paul also shared his thoughts on how the robotics industry might better help with these types of issues going forward.

Links from today’s show:

If you want to be a guest on an upcoming episode of the podcast, or if you have recommendations for future guests or segment ideas, contact Steve Crowe or Mike Oitzman.

For sponsorship opportunities of The Robot Report Podcast, contact Courtney Nagle for more information.

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Nic Radford on developing underwater robots; celebrating 100 episodes

Steve Crowe — Fri, 02 Dec 2022 15:46:04 +0000

Welcome to Episode 100 of The Robot Report Podcast, which brings conversations with robotics innovators straight to you. Join us each week for discussions with leading roboticists, innovative robotics companies and other key members of the robotics community.

In this episode we celebrate our 100th show and look back at our favorite interviews. We created a playlist that includes some of the more memorable interviews. Over the course of these 100 episodes, we’ve generated more than 110 hours of discussions and nearly 150,000 plays.

Thanks to my co-host Mike Oitzman for all his contributions to this show. Thanks to all our colleagues behind the scenes who have made this possible. But most of all, thanks to all our guests and listeners who really make this podcast possible. Please let us know how we can continue to improve the show going forward – who do you want to hear from, what do you want to learn about, etc. We’re an open book and welcome all feedback – good, bad and in between.

Our guest this week is Nic Radford, founder and CEO of Nauticus Robotics. Nic joined the show to discuss his team’s development of underwater robots. Leveraging experience developing space robots for NASA, Nauticus’ underwater robots can perform inspection and maintenance tasks and much more.

We also recap the bigger news stories of the week, including San Francisco OK’ing its police department to potentially use robots with lethal force. We’ll have more on this story next week with an interview with Paul Scharre, vice president and director of studies at the Center for a New American Security. Scharre previously worked in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) where he played a leading role in establishing policies on unmanned and autonomous systems and emerging weapons technologies. Scharre brings informed insights to the table, discussing how a policy about lethal robots for police departments should be implemented and monitored.

Links from today’s show:

If you want to be a guest on an upcoming episode of the podcast, or if you have recommendations for future guests or segment ideas, contact Steve Crowe or Mike Oitzman.

For sponsorship opportunities of The Robot Report Podcast, contact Courtney Nagle for more information.

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Video podcast episode featuring interview with Tatum Robotics founder

Mike Oitzman — Tue, 22 Nov 2022 00:20:29 +0000

This week, we have a special video edition of The Robot Report podcast. This is the video feed from our recent interview with Tatum Robotics founder and CEO, Samantha Johnson. The video features American Sign Language (ASL) translation so that hearing-impaired individuals can also enjoy the content.

Tatum Robotics is building a robotic device shaped like a human hand and arm, that can mimic a human translator for deafblind individuals. Currently, deafblind individuals communicate by touching the hand of their translator. The human translator uses finger spelling and ASL signs to communicate.

Tatum Robotics is building a robotic analog to the human hand, designed to replicate the interaction between a translator and a deafblind user. Ultimately, Tatum Robotics wants to open up the world of ebooks for consumption by deafblind individuals. This will be followed by remote communication (i.e. over the web) between both hearing individuals and deafblind individuals, or even between two deafblind individuals.

As Samantha Johnson discusses in the video, until now, deafblind individuals are often isolated and bored for long periods of time, with no ability to communicate without a translator.

An early prototype of the Tatum Robotics communication robot for deafblind individuals. | Credit: Tatum Robotics

We want to thank the ASL translators on this project: Tymber Marsh and Sean Havas for their amazing translation skills. Tatum Robotics is currently recruiting additional ASL signers to contribute their unique ASL techniques to the robot design. If you are interested, contact Tatum Robotics directly for how you can contribute.

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A conversation with the founders of RobOpsCon; a robo dog fight breaks out over patents

Steve Crowe — Fri, 18 Nov 2022 19:47:50 +0000

Welcome to Episode 99 of The Robot Report Podcast, which brings conversations with robotics innovators straight to you. Join us each week for discussions with leading roboticists, innovative robotics companies and other key members of the robotics community.

This week, we talk to the founders of the Robotics Operations Group (ROG) about the growth of the organization and the planning and execution of the inaugural “RobOpsCon”, a conference dedicated to best practices for operating autonomous robotics at scale.

Co-host Mike Oitzman attended the conference earlier this week in Santa Cruz, CA, and had the opportunity to sit down with ROG co-founders Florian Pestoni and Joe Wieciek to talk about the organization, its mission and what it took to pull this live, in-person conference together.

Attendees at the 2022 RobOps Conference in Santa Cruz, CA | Credit: Florian Pestoni

The podcast also recaps some of the week’s top stories, including a patent fight that’s brewing between Boston Dynamics and Ghost Robotics. Cruise is now able to run its robotaxis during the day, as it enters the next phase of rollout in San Francisco. Finally, we talk about the newest robotic piece picking/sortation robot being deployed at Amazon.

Links from today’s show:

If you would like to be a guest on an upcoming episode of the podcast, or if you have recommendations for future guests or segment ideas, contact Steve Crowe or Mike Oitzman.

For sponsorship opportunities of The Robot Report Podcast, contact Courtney Nagle for more information.

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Inside Samantha Johnson’s quest to build robots for deafblind people

Steve Crowe — Mon, 14 Nov 2022 19:58:21 +0000

Welcome to Episode 98 of The Robot Report Podcast, which brings conversations with robotics innovators straight to you. Join us each week for discussions with leading roboticists, innovative robotics companies and other key members of the robotics community.

Samantha Johnson, founder and CEO of Tatum Robotics, joined the podcast this week. The Boston-based startup won the Pitchfire robotics startup competition at RoboBusiness 2022. The company is building an independent communication tool for people with deafblindness who can’t hear or see. Tatum Robotics’ anthropomorphic hand is designed to sign tactile sign languages for people with deafblindness. You can see a couple of photos and a video about Tatum Robotics at the bottom of this page.

Johnson dives into the challenging system design and the opportunities for such technology. She also discusses her passion for helping the deafblind community, educating us about some of the daily challenges they face. The interview with Johnson starts at the 21:44 mark of the episode.

The podcast also recaps some of the week’s top stories, including a new spin on shelf-inventory robots and a merger between two LiDAR companies.

Links from today’s show:

If you would like to be a guest on an upcoming episode of the podcast, or if you have recommendations for future guests or segment ideas, contact Steve Crowe or Mike Oitzman.

For sponsorship opportunities of The Robot Report Podcast, contact Courtney Nagle for more information.

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ARGO AI shuts down; Covariant CEO discusses RaaS performance

Steve Crowe — Fri, 28 Oct 2022 23:25:51 +0000

Welcome to Episode 97 of The Robot Report Podcast, which brings conversations with robotics innovators straight to you. Join us each week for discussions with leading roboticists, innovative robotics companies and other key members of the robotics community.

This week, cohosts Steve Crowe and Mike Oitzman discuss the news this week about the shutdown of autonomous driving technology company Argo AI. The company is being dissolved and the technology and team members are going to be distributed to leading funders FORD and VW.

Finally this week, Mike speaks with Peter Chen, CEO of Covariant.AI, about the company’s new RaaS solution, CovariantOne, which is built on service level agreements (SLAs) for the performance of the Covariant warehousing solution.

Links from today’s show:

If you would like to be a guest on an upcoming episode of the podcast, or if you have recommendations for future guests or segment ideas, contact Steve Crowe or Mike Oitzman.

For sponsorship opportunities of The Robot Report Podcast, contact Courtney Nagle for more information.

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Viam opens beta of new robotics platform; Amazon/FedEx end testing of delivery robots

Steve Crowe — Fri, 14 Oct 2022 17:28:52 +0000

Welcome to Episode 96 of The Robot Report Podcast, which brings conversations with robotics innovators straight to you. Join us each week for discussions with leading roboticists, innovative robotics companies and other key members of the robotics community.

This week, cohosts Steve Crowe and Mike Oitzman discuss the news this week about the ending of field testing of delivery robots in a partnership between Amazon and Fedex.

They also discuss the recent announcement by a group of leading legged robotics companies to dissuade users from weaponizing their robotics platforms. What are your thoughts about this proposal? Let us know in the comments, or leave us a voicemail.

Finally, this week, Mike talks to Eliot Horowitz, founder and CEO of Viam Inc. Viam launched the open beta of its new robotics platform. Viam provides an open-source robot architecture that turns complex functionality into simple APIs, with an integrated cloud service to orchestrate production deployments.

Links from today’s show:

If you would like to be a guest on an upcoming episode of the podcast, or if you have recommendations for future guests or segment ideas, contact Steve Crowe or Mike Oitzman.

For sponsorship opportunities of The Robot Report Podcast, contact Courtney Nagle for more information.

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