The Carbon Robotics LaserWeeder smart implement can autonomously remove unwanted plants from the crop field. | Credit: Carbon Robotics

Carbon Robotics closed $30 million in Series C financing from new lead investor Sozo Ventures along with existing investors Anthos Capital, Fuse Venture Capital, Ignition Partners, Liquid2 and Voyager Capital. The funding will be used to expand sales regions in North America, optimize and scale manufacturing, develop new software and hardware products, and launch into international markets. This latest round of financing brings Carbon Robotics’ overall funding to $67 million.

“Carbon Robotics’ elegant use of AI, computer vision, robotics and lasers is the only solution that enables farmers to reduce their most expensive line item – weed control – without damaging plants or the soil,” said Rob Freelen, managing director of Sozo Ventures. “I am particularly impressed with the team’s fast pace of innovation to bring breakthrough products to market, boosting farmers’ profitability across conventional, organic and no-till practices.”

The LaserWeeder identifies weeds and targets them for elimination. The implement’s 30 high-powered CO2 lasers use thermal energy to destroy the meristem of the weed with millimeter accuracy, without damaging nearby crops or disturbing the soil.

“This financing round further supports our mission to provide cost-effective and efficient precision ag-tech tools to growers,” said Paul Mikesell, CEO and founder of Carbon Robotics. “Traditional weeding methods, including hand weeding and herbicides, are expensive, unreliable and damage soil health. The LaserWeeder uniquely addresses all of these challenges.”

To date, Carbon Robotics’ LaserWeeders have successfully eliminated more than 500 million weeds across 40 different crops. This year, the LaserWeeder will be delivered to farms across 17 U.S. states and three provinces in Canada. Most recently, Carbon Robotics expanded the features of the LaserWeeder with the industry’s first LaserThinning capability, targeting areas where vegetable crops are purposefully overseeded and then thinned for optimal crop spacing, growth and yield.

As part of the Series C financing, Rob Freelen with Sozo Ventures and Erik Benson with Voyager Capital will join the Carbon Robotics board of directors.

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Geek+ P-series robots handle storage shelving then queue and present items for picking to humans. | Credit: Geek+

Geek+ recently announced its combined worldwide fleet of P-series goods-to-person (GTP) workflow robots picked ten billion items over the past year. The GTP picking solutions deployed around the world covered over 175 million km during the period, according to the company, which is further than the distance from the Earth to the sun.

Yong Zheng, Founder and CEO of Geek+, said: “We are very proud of what we have achieved recently. The amount of merchandise that our robots have handled, coupled with the savings in time and energy, demonstrate that mobile robots are a technology for today’s problems and a brighter future.”

Each day, the number of items managed by Geek+ GTP robots and warehouse management systems reached as much as 750 million, according to the company.

This is a significant milestone for a fleet of robots. In researching this claim, we reached out to the company to inquire about the deployed number of GTP robots used to reach this milestone.

In the U.S., Geek+ said it has deployed more than 4,000 robots in 24 locations since 2019. Worldwide, the company said it has deployed an additional 26,000 robots for a total worldwide fleet of 30,000 robots. We used that final figure in the calculation of this milestone.

With all of the data in hand, each robot needed to pick an average of 1.5 items per minute and drive at an average speed of 440 mm/sec (well within the technical and operating specifications of the robots).

The table below contains output from the spreadsheet that we generated to validate these claims. A company representative stated that the formula for calculating the items picked number was calculated using the average tasks picked per hour * average pieces per task * 10 working hours per day * operating robot * operating period.

Table 1 – Calculations for Geek+ robots (initial conditions in bold)

*data provided by Geek+

Over the past year, Geek+ has added new projects and expanded its collaboration with existing clients while continuing to evolve the complete solution. The company optimized Geek+’s warehouse management systems to boost robot efficiency by 15%. Geek+ said it plans to continue to improve and enhance its technology and expects further gains in sustainability and efficiency in 2023.

In 2022, Geek+ secured partnerships to expand into Canada and Brazil. Also, Geek+ has expanded its operations by adding a 1400m2 experience center and two new offices in North America, with over 100 employees.

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Neubility mobile robots operate on the sidewalk to fulfill last-mile delivery services from a retailer or restaurant. | Credit: Neubility

Korean sidewalk delivery robotics company Neubility announced that it has secured a $2.42 million (3 billion won) investment from Samsung Venture Investment. This brings a cumulative total investment raised by the company to date to $24.2M (30 billion won). The company is ready to expand its automated delivery service to new overseas markets, including Japan, Europe, and the United States.

Neubility was founded in 2017 and since that time, the company has developed a functional autonomous sidewalk delivery robot in South Korea. The robot operates in the public space on sidewalks, to deliver goods from a restaurant or retailer to the end customer.

The company was awarded the CES 2023 Innovation Award-winning self-driving robot, Neubie, and the Robot as a Service (RaaS) platform, Neubiego.

Neubility CEO Sangmin Lee said, “We are honored and pleased to attract an investment from Samsung Venture Investment.” He also added, “Neubility will strive to boost its production and expand its services.”

Neubility has been laying a stable foundation for growth through a range of support including business collaboration opportunities and financial consulting since it was selected by C-Lab Outside, Samsung Electronics’ startup acceleration program, in 2021.

Editors note: The story has been updated to correct an earlier error in the corresponding value of the investment in Korean won.

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Berkshire Grey produces ecommerce fulfillment automation systems that autonomously bring inventory to sorting and picking stations to assemble customer orders. | Credit: Berkshire Grey

Berkshire Grey, Inc. said that it has reached a final agreement to merge with SoftBank Group Corp. and its affiliate, which are both known as “SoftBank.” Under the terms of the agreement, SoftBank will buy all of the company’s outstanding capital stock that it does not already own for $1.40 per share. This is a cash deal worth about $375 million. SoftBank is a strategic investment holding company with investments in AI, smart robotics, IoT, telecommunications, internet services, and clean energy technology providers. In January 2020, Softbank participated in Berkshire Grey’s $263 million Series B financing round.

“After a thoughtful review of value creation opportunities available to Berkshire Grey, we are pleased to have reached this agreement with SoftBank, which we believe offers significant value to our stockholders,” said Tom Wagner, CEO of Berkshire Grey. “SoftBank is a great partner, and this merger will strengthen our ability to serve customers with our disruptive AI robotics technology as they seek to become more efficient in their operations and maintain a competitive edge.”

“As a long-time partner and investor in Berkshire Grey, we have a shared vision for robotics and automation,” said Vikas J. Parekh, Managing Partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers. “Berkshire Grey is a pioneer in transformative, AI-enabled robotic technologies that address use cases in retail, eCommerce, grocery, 3PL, and package handling companies. We look forward to partnering with Berkshire Grey to accelerate their growth and deliver ongoing excellence for customers.”

The agreement, which was approved by Berkshire Grey’s board of directors unanimously, is worth about 24% more than the stock price at the end of trading on March 24, 2023, the last trading day before this announcement. The deal doesn’t depend on financing, and it’s expected to close in the third quarter of 2023, as long as the usual closing conditions are met, such as the approval of Berkshire Grey’s stockholders and approvals from government agencies.

As recently as Q2 2022, Berkshire Grey reported a loss of $29 million on $23.4 million in revenue.  The company has raised a total of $428 million to date (source: Crunchbase), and it went public in July 2021 in a SPAC deal.

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The first 3D-printed rocket called GLHF from Relativity Space was successfully launched this week. | Credit: Relativity Space

Relativity Space successfully launched a 3D-printed rocket on Wednesday March 24, 2023. The first Terran 1 rocket called “GLHF” (Good Luck Have Fun) lifted off from launch complex 16 at Cape Canaveral. The Terran 1 is the largest 3D-printed object to be launched as a rocket.

After two prior scrubbed launch attempts over the last week, GLHF successfully lifted off from the launch pad, and reached two goals during its brief flight:

1. Max-Q: the point of greatest aerodynamic pressure on the rocket body
2. Main engine shut off: the completion of the main engine burn

The rocket failed to reach orbit in what appears to be a secondary rocket engine failure. As of press time, there is no news on the exact failure. Without the secondary engine ignition, the rocket did not have enough power to reach orbit.

Relativity Space uses industrial robots to 3D print rocket’s body

Relativity Space is innovating through the use of robotics to 3D print metal items. As shown in the video below, the company uses industrial robot arms to manage the application of welded metal to produce the rocket body and rocket motors. Rocket bodies are currently expensive to manufacture, and 3D printing them promises to reduce costs and reduce weight by creating complex shapes that require less material (by mass) than with current manufacturing methods.

Traditional methods might take 24 months to produce a rocket body, whereas 3D printing can reduce that timeframe to 2 months. Likewise, a 48-month iteration time on a complete rocket assembly can be reduced to 6 months.

The Terran 1 is designed for the future of constellation deployment and resupply. With software-driven design and the use of 3D printing, the payload part of the rocket (in the nose cone) can easily be manufactured to the specs of each individual launch client.

Ultimately, Relativity Space is planning to produce the Terran R reusable robot, further improving the ROI on rocket development as well as the cost per launch. The vision is to create a fleet of reusable rockets to support future missions to the moon, mars and beyond.

The company was founded in 2015 and has raised $1.3B to date. (Crunchbase)

Here’s the live stream of the Terran 1 rocket launch:

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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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Ambi Robotics warehouse automation solution automates item picking operations. | Credit: Ambi Robotics

AmbiAccess, a cloud-based business intelligence tool from Ambi Robotics, helps customers maximize their Robots-as-a-Service (RaaS) investment. AmbiAccess optimizes operations and maximizes efficiency with superior fleet management and real-time analytics for global shippers and logistics organizations.

“We built the AmbiAccess platform with a suite of operation-enhancing applications to make our customers’ lives easier,” explains Ambi Robotics co-founder and CTO Jeff Mahler. “This new customer portal goes beyond data visibility, with comprehensive insights and advanced analytics that leverage historical data and trends. Now our customers can better understand the performance of their entire fleet, compare KPIs between facilities and regions, and access real-time analytics from any device.”

As companies deploy AI-powered robotic sorting systems across their networks, the AmbiAccess platform simplifies fleet management. On-demand access to data-driven business intelligence helps customers understand their operations. Customers may view real-time robot fleet performance, advanced analytics reports, actionable insights, the system’s knowledge library, and 24/7 customer assistance in one spot. Real-time data records productivity, system utilization, item analysis, and proactive insights to identify potential issues.

“AmbiAccess opens the doors to a more efficient and sustainable supply chain,” says Ambi Robotics VP of Operations Stephen McKinley. “This new platform demonstrates the impact of our AI-powered robotic sorting systems and allows our customers to gain an even greater competitive edge in the market.”

AmbiAccess automates throughput, sort plans, exception items, and operational effectiveness. Customers can compare system, facility, and regional trends and metrics. The cloud-based platform lets warehouse managers and operations executives view metrics from anywhere.

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NVIDIA Omniverse enables Amazon Robotics engineers to quickly simulate warehouse environments and train sensor data. | Credit: NVIDIA

NVIDIA’s CEO Jensen Huang presented the latest product announcements during his keynote at the 2023 GTC event this morning.

One of the first significant announcements is that NVIDIA accelerated computing together with cuOpt has solved Lee and Lim’s traveling salesman problem faster than any other solution to date. This milestone opens up a new world of capability for roboticists to create real-time solutions to AMR path planning problems.

Isaac Sim on Omniverse

Omniverse Cloud for enterprises is now available as a platform as a service (PaaS) for compute-intensive workloads like synthetic data generation and CI/CD. This PaaS provides access to top-of-the-line hardware when you need it for processing-intensive workloads. The service is rolling out with MS Azure.

Amazon Robotics is an early customer of Isaac Sim on Omniverse. The Proteus warehouse robot development team created a complete digital twin of the Proteus AMR and deployed it into Isaac SIM to help with the development and programming of the AMR. 

The team generated hundreds of photo-realistic environments to train and test sensor processing algorithms, and AMR behavior. This enabled the development team to accelerate the project without the need to build and test expensive prototypes in the real world.

Isaac Sim enables sensor simulation and interactive design and can run on AWS RoboMaker, to help with world generation. It is deployable on your cloud service provider.

BMW is also using NVIDIA Omniverse to accelerate the planning and design of new automobile assembly factories. BMW moved the virtual factory development to Omniverse. There, manufacturing engineers are able to layout robotics assembly workcells and virtually modify the robotics, tools and programming to optimize the workflow. Mercedes is claiming that this digital twin development process is shaving two years off the planning cycle for a new factory.

BMW is an early user of NVIDIA Omniverse for the development and programming of future automotive assembly lines and factories. | Credit: NVIDIA

Isaac ROS DP3 release adds new perception capabilities and open-source modules

There is a new ROS DP3 release for Issac that includes a number of new features:

• 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, NVIDIA’s ROS 2 hardware acceleration implementation
• New Isaac ROS benchmark suite built

NVIDIA Omniverse and Isaac Sim enable roboticists to view the world as the sensors see it. | Credit: NVIDIA

Updates to NVIDIA Jetson Orin Family

The Jetson Orin product line gets an update including a new Orin Nano unit that is available in a complete range of system-on-module from hobbyists to commercial platforms:

• Jetson Orin Nano 8GB/4GB
• Orin NX 16GB/8GB
• AGX Orin 64GB/32GB

New entry-level Jetson developer kit for Robotics / Edge AI

NVIDIA is introducing the NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano developer kit that delivers 80x the performance when compared with the previous-generation Jetson Nano, enabling developers to run advanced transformer and robotics models. It also improves power efficiency by 50x the performance per watt, so developers getting started with the Jetson Orin Nano modules can build and deploy power-efficient, entry-level AI-powered robots, smart drones, and intelligent vision systems.

• Available now for preorder for $499

NVIDIA Metropolis

In a future-looking statement, NVIDIA believes that building infrastructure will evolve such that every building will be considered to be a “robot.” Practically, this implies that buildings and other infrastructure elements will be imbued with the ability to sense, think and act.

It starts with the idea to automate infrastructure with vision-based AI as a platform for things that watch other things that move. This is a vision that the company calls “NVIDIA Metropolis”

The company is announced the latest generation TAO, TAO 5.0 and the next version of DeepStream which puts more sensors to work to help automate machinery and solve computer vision grand challenges with APIs.

Additional features of TAIO 5.0 include:

• New transformer-based pre-trained models
• Deploy on any device – GPUs, CPUs, MCUs
• TAO is now source open
• AI-assisted annotation
• REST APIs
• Integration with any cloud — Google Vertex AI, AzureAI, AWS, etc.

NVIDIA is also announcing Metropolis Microservices to solve hard problems like multi-camera tracking and human and machine interactions.

DeepStream is putting AI to work in low-code interfaces for graph composing as an expansion of existing AI services. This includes multi-sensor sensor fusion and deterministic scheduling for things like PLC controllers.

New features of DeepStream SDK include a new graph execution runtime (GXF) that allows developers to expand beyond the open-source GStreamer multimedia framework. This update unlocks a host of new applications, including those in industrial quality control, robotics and autonomous machines.

Editors note: An earlier version of this article mistakenly referenced Mercedes instead of BMW. It has been updated to accurately document Jensen’s keynote references.

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OTTO Motors releases new software powering the industry’s most comprehensive fleet of AMRs with the ability to handle any material handling job up to 4,200 lb. | Credit: OTTO Motors

At ProMat 2023, OTTO Motors unveiled its newest AMR – the OTTO 600. The OTTO 600 extends OTTO Motors’ portfolio to five different models that can carry payloads from 100kg (297 lbs) to 1,500kg (4,200 lbs). OTTO AMRs are designed to automate material handling operations in manufacturing and logistics facilities.

OTTO 600 unlocks important new workflows with its ability to move pallets, carts and other payloads up to 600 kg (1,322 lb). With an all-metal construction and IP54 rating, OTTO 600 follows the OTTO Motors legacy of AMRs built to deliver results in the most demanding of factory environments.

“In 2015, OTTO 1500 defined the heavy-class AMR category. In 2017, OTTO 100 quickly became responsible for the industry’s largest AMR installations. In 2022, we launched OTTO Lifter, the world’s first truly autonomous forklift. Today, we’re proud to announce OTTO 600, a mid-range AMR offering the perfect balance of strength and agility,” said Matt Rendall, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of OTTO Motors. “Powered by our industry-leading autonomous software, OTTO now offers an unmatched material handling portfolio.”

• Maneuverable in tight spaces: OTTO 600 offers capabilities of larger AMRs with the maneuverability needed to get around in constrained spaces like work cells.
• Durable build for demanding environments: In addition to a rugged, all-metal body, OTTO 600 offers a superior ability to withstand dust and fluids with IP54 construction.
• Fast and safe around people and objects: OTTO 600 works quickly and safely alongside people thanks to advanced sensors and OTTO’s proven autonomy software.
• Versatile to get different jobs done: Capable of moving carts and pallets, as well as connecting islands of automation, OTTO 600 unlocks limitless workflows including lineside delivery, work cell delivery and palletizer to stretch-wrapper transport.

Key specs:

• 600kg (1,322 lb) payload capacity
• 4.5 mph (2 m/s) maximum speed
• 1050 mm x 700 mm x 320 mm (41.3″ x 27.6″ x 12.6″) footprint
• IP54 rating

OTTO 600 is available through the existing global network of OTTO Motors system integrators and material handling solution providers.

New software release

OTTO’s latest software release, version 2.28, delivers faster and safer traffic movement and a new facility configuration interface for quicker workflow set-up. OTTO Motors invests heavily in software development to constantly evolve and deliver the smartest AMR software. This marks the sixth software release in the last three years. The OTTO AMR software suite is the most proven solution in the industry with over four million hours of production driving experience and is trusted for large-scale deployments by the most reputed brands like Toyota and GE.

“The success of large-scale, deeply integrated deployments depends significantly on effective fleet management, which is why we are continuously evolving our fleet manager. In this software upgrade, we are introducing new traffic management functionality that enables users to create different rules of the road for groups of different OTTO AMRs in the facility, resulting in faster traffic movement and improved safety,” said Jay Judkowitz, VP of Product at OTTO Motors. “As our customers continue to deploy a variety of models from OTTO in complex environments, this is a game changer.”

Software release features include:

• Team-Based Traffic Control: Customers can create traffic zones for specific robot types. For example, operators can specify lanes where larger AMRs cannot enter, ensuring smaller AMRs remain unblocked and are able to keep moving for higher throughput.
• New and intuitive facility configuration interface: Customers can now save up to 50% of the time required to set up facility maps and workflows. It is also easier for customers to use, learn and adapt to the system.
• Interoperability: OTTO Motors was the first AMR vendor to support the well-known AGV standard, VDA5050, empowering customers to manage dissimilar types of material handling solutions from a third-party master controller interface.
• New pallet types: OTTO Lifter now supports BulkPak® 4845 HDMP series bins, enabling customers to move more pallets of their choice.

Since its inception, OTTO Motors has helped customers achieve throughput improvements as high as 600% and return on investment in as little as 11 months in different industry verticals. This launch of OTTO 600 and new software enables OTTO Motors to help manufacturers automate a larger part of their material handling operations and achieve higher ROI.

OTTO 600 and the latest software will be showcased in booth #N7537 at PROMAT on March 20-23, 2023 in Chicago IL.

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Slip Robotics demonstrated its automated trailer loading/unloading system (ATLS) at ProMat 2023. The omnidirectional robot is designed to carry up to 8 full pallets and a total of 6 tons. It is capable of autonomously driving into a tractor-trailer for transport to the next destination. Three ATLS robots can fit inside a typical tractor-trailer.

Fork truck operators do not need to enter the trailer and instead load and unload pallets onto the Slip ATLS in the open loading dock. The best part of the optimization with Slip AMR is that driver waiting time can be reduced from 1.5 hours down to 5 minutes.

The Slip ATLS travels with the load to the destination, where it drives off the trailer, onto the dock for unloading and loading. A loaded set of ATLS robots would then drive onto the trailer for immediate departure.

The business model for Slip is that a logistics company would have a set (of three) ATLS robots for each loading bay on their loading dock. The ATLS robots would swap out as each new trailer arrives. Then the dock staff would unload the full pallets and reload the ATLS with the next trailer load of pallets.

If you are visiting ProMat, check out the Slip Robotics at Booth # N6739.

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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:

• Silicon Valley Bank collapse live blog (Bloomberg)
• Plus One Robotics raises $50M Series C funding round
• John Deere acquires SparkAI’s human-in-the-loop tech
• Michael Kohen, founder and CEO of SparkAI on the podcast in episode 91
• 6 River Systems website

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Plus One Robotics, a provider of advanced AI vision software and solutions for robotic parcel handling, announced that it has raised $50 million in Series C funding. The round was led by Scale Venture Partners, with Partner Rory O’Driscoll joining the board of directors. Top Tier Capital Partners, Tyche Partners, ROBO Global Ventures, Translink, McRock, and Pritzker Group Venture Capital also participated in the round alongside existing investors which brings the company’s total funding to date to nearly $100 million.

This $50 million funding round comes less than 2 months after Plus One Robotics laid off about 10% of its staff.

With these new funds, Plus One expects to further increase its capacity and rapidly scale deployment, as well as expand its sales and marketing efforts in North America and internationally. This expansion builds on Plus One Robotics’ existing relationships with customers in the parcel post, logistics, and general merchandise industries, serving customers that include FedEx, MSC Industrial, and many more.

The labor problem

“The labor shortage is hitting the shipping industry hard, and parcel picking is an often overlooked yet essential part of the process,” said Scale Partner Rory O’Driscoll. “By automating the parcel handling piece, Plus One Robotics is rapidly modernizing an outdated system that’s no longer sustainable. It is stepping up and leading the way in a $128 billion market, with fundamentals that prove its value.”

E-commerce has grown to represent 19% of U.S. retail sales, with approximately 20 billion parcels delivered in the U.S. in 2021. Shipping growth is expected to rise by 25% over the next five years resulting in warehouses and distribution centers not having the workforce to keep up.

On the supply side, over 80% of warehouses are manual, and with the demands placed on shipping expected to grow, there will be over 1 million more jobs to fill by 2025 despite the shrinking of available labor sources – and costs are rising. Labor costs average $25 per hour and continue to increase. This creates a perfect storm threatening the supply chain and impeding future e-commerce growth.

“The growth of e-commerce has placed tremendous pressure on shipping responsiveness and scalability that has significantly exacerbated labor and capacity issues,” said Erik Nieves, CEO and co-founder of Plus One Robotics. “Automation is key, but keeping a human in the loop is essential to running a business 24/7 with greater speed and fewer errors. With the ongoing labor shortages, I believe we’ll see an increase in the adoption of Robots-as-a-Service (RaaS) to lower capital expenditures and deploy automation on a subscription basis. This new funding will help us scale up and meet the need for these solutions.”

Key to Plus One Robotics’ effectiveness is its human-in-the-loop software. Employees, remote or on-premises, can supervise multiple robots from any location, speeding the robot’s ability to handle exceptions, and enabling 24/7 operations. Users benefit from improved sorting and picking throughput by >30% while decreasing operational costs.

Plus One said it has experienced nearly three times year-over-year growth from expanded business with existing customers and new deployments. Additionally, it has increased its adoption of the human-in-the-loop capability and RaaS offering among its parcel and post, third-party logistics (3PL), and general merchandise customers.

Plus One said its deployments perform over one million parcel picks each day in production.

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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:

• Argo AI team joins Ford’s new self-driving startup Latitude AI
• OpenAI releases APIs for production use of ChatGPT
• Figure.ai website
• Figure Promises First General-Purpose Humanoid Robot (IEEE Spectrum)
• Today, Figure emerges from stealth. (LinkedIn)
• APEX.AI Grace
• APEX.AI IDA

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OpenAI launches a new developer edition of the ChatGPT API to support high-consumption use cases. | Credit Adobe Stock

OpenAI announced two new APIs for ChatGPT that will enable high-volume use and improve the functionality of ChatGPT for production applications. For roboticists and robotics application developers, this provides programmatic access to the speech-to-text functionality.

Developers can now integrate ChatGPT and Whisper models into their apps and products through the OpenAI-supported API. OpenAI has made the open-source Whisper large-v2 model in the API faster and cheaper for developers.

ChatGPT API users should expect model upgrades and dedicated capacity for model control. The company has also improved the API terms of service based on developer input. All of these changes encourage the use of the API in new applications.

A new ChatGPT model called gpt-3.5-turbo was released this week and is the same model used in the ChatGPT product. New pricing for the API access is priced at $0.002 per 1k tokens, which is 10x cheaper than the existing GPT-3.5 models. The company is claiming that only small changes are needed to existing prompts to use the API.

Robotics Summit (May 10-11) returns to Boston

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Finally, OpenAI is offering dedicated instances of ChatGPT for API users who need the performance and availability that a dedicated instance offers. Developers get full control over the instance’s load, the option to enable features such as longer context limits, and the ability to pin the model snapshot. According to the company, dedicated instances can make economic sense for developers running beyond ~450M tokens per day.

With a renewed focus on developers, the company is making several changes to its policies with this release:

• Data submitted through the API is no longer used for service improvements
• A default 30-day data retention policy for API users has been implemented
• Pre-launch review is removed
• Improved developer documentation

What does it mean for robotics?

Traditionally, GPT models read unstructured text, which the model sees as a series of “tokens.” ChatGPT models, on the other hand, take in a series of messages along with metadata. There is a new model raw format called Chat Markup Language (“ChatML”), which is used to read the tokens in the API.

This opens the door to creative new ways that ChatGPT can be used in robotics applications. The system could be leveraged to enhance interactivity between a robot and its end users, especially in interactions with service robots or robotic applications that interface with non-professional users (i.e. the public).

API implementation of the ChatGPT functionality will enable developers to filter both user inputs (to better model a prompt) and the ChatGPT response. Snapchat, Instacart and Shopify are already implementing API access to ChatGPT and this will help ensure that the API is scalable and hardened for the high volumes of API usage that these applications will deliver.

The system has already been proven to be useful for generating code that can operate a robot as Microsoft engineers recently demonstrated.

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The OMRON TM20 cobot features a 20 kg payload and 1300 mm reach. | Credit: OMRON

OMRON extended its collaborative robot product line with the addition of the OMRON TM20 cobot. The TM20 features a 44 lb (20 kg) payload capacity with a 51-inch (1300 mm) reach.

The OMRON TM line of cobots now features six collaborative robot arms, with maximum payload capacities ranging from 13 lb (6 kg) to 44 lb (20 kg). It is designed to work seamlessly with other OMRON products, including sensors, controllers, and software, to provide a comprehensive automation solution for industrial customers. The robot is programmable with a click-and-drag method in TMflow.

Like the rest of the OMRON TM lineup, the TM20 can be deployed onboard an autonomous mobile robot (AMR) as a mobile manipulator. The robot also comes equipped with special joint covers to protect it from cutting oil and other hazardous materials, making it suitable for use in machine tending applications.

OMRON said the TM20 is well-suited for a variety of applications, but especially for palletizing. With the long reach and heaviest payload in the OMRON TM product line, it can handle most palletizing operations within its work envelope.

“We are excited to launch the OMRON TM20, which expands the capabilities of our cobot family and gives customers the ability to automate heavy payload applications,” Fernando Vaquerizo, fixed and cobots product marketing manager at OMRON Europe. “The OMRON TM20 is designed to be easy to use, reliable and safe. It relieves operators from tasks that involve heavy lifting while working safely side by side with people.”

TM20 technical specifications

• Reach (mm): 1300
• Maximum payload (kg): 20
• Maximum speed (m/s): 1.3
• Weight (kg): 33

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