Companies offering unmanned aerial drones, usually coupled with drone-enabled data and analytics services, were particularly strong in February 2023, with firms receiving sizable mid- to late-stage funding rounds. These providers typically focus on surveying and inspection applications, with construction, agriculture, utilities and energy sectors as the target markets. Examples include Skydio ($230M Series E), Fulfil Solutions ($60M Series B), Garuda Aerospace ($22M Series A) and i-KINGTEC ($20M Series C). UK-based DRONAMICS landed $40M in Seed funding.

Table 1: February 2023 Robotics Funding and Investment

Companies located in the USA received the most rounds (14) and the most funding ($436M), dwarfing other countries (Figure 1). Investment into Chinese firms came in at a distant second (7 rounds for a total of $81M).

Figure 1: February 2023 Robotics Investment by Country

All funding types were well represented in February 2023 (Figure 2). Series E rounds accounted for the bulk of the funding amounts, buoyed by investments into drone data services providers Zeitview (formerly DroneBase) and Skydio, at $55M and $230M, respectively (Figure 3).

Figure 2: February 2023 Robotics Funding Amounts by Investment Type

Figure 3: February 2023 Robotics Funding Amounts by Investment Number and Amounts

Editor’s note: What defines robotics investments? The answer to this simple question is central in any attempt to quantify them with some degree of rigor. To make investment analyses consistent, repeatable, and valuable, it is critical to wring out as much subjectivity as possible during the evaluation process. This begins with a definition of terms and a description of assumptions.

Investors and investing
Investment should come from venture capital firms, corporate investment groups, angel investors, and other sources. Friends-and-family investments, government/non-governmental agency grants, and crowd-sourced funding are excluded.

Robotics and intelligent systems companies
Robotics companies must generate or expect to generate revenue from the production of robotics products (that sense, analyze, and act in the physical world), hardware or software subsystems and enabling technologies for robots, or services supporting robotics devices. For this analysis, autonomous vehicles (including technologies that support autonomous driving) and drones are considered robots, while 3D printers, CNC systems, and various types of “hard” automation are not.

Companies that are “robotic” in name only, or use the term “robot” to describe products and services that do not enable or support devices acting in the physical world, are excluded. For example, this includes “software robots” and robotic process automation. Many firms have multiple locations in different countries. Company locations given in the analysis are based on the publicly listed headquarters in legal documents, press releases, etc.

Verification
Funding information is collected from a number of public and private sources. These include press releases from corporations and investment groups, corporate briefings, market research firms, and association and industry publications. In addition, information comes from sessions at conferences and seminars, as well as during private interviews with industry representatives, investors, and others. Unverifiable investments are excluded and estimates are made where investment amounts are not provided or are unclear.

The post Robotics investments reach $620M in February 2023 appeared first on The Robot Report.

Companies providing unmanned aerial drones and drone-enabling technologies, as well as drone services for search and rescue, public safety, industrial inspection, mapping and surveying, also attracted funding for Terra Drone, SwissDrones, SentinelSky and Nautical Wings, for example.

Robotics investments for December 2022 totaled $1.14B as a result of 55 investments. That represented a 7.7% increase over December 2021’s funding total of $1.06B (representing 65 investments).

Table 1: January 2023 Robotics Funding and Investment

As described in Figure 1, companies located in the USA received the most funding, both in terms of the number of rounds and the total funding amount for January 2023. The total funding for UK companies was sizable, buoyed by the investment into Oxbotica, a provider of a full-stack autonomy solution for autonomous vehicles.

Figure 1: January 2023 robotics investment by country

All funding types were represented for January 2023 investments (Figure 2), with C rounds accounting for the bulk of the funding amounts (Figure 3).

Figure 2: January 2023 robotics funding amounts by investment type

Figure 3: December 2022 robotics funding amounts by investment number and amounts

Editor’s note: What defines robotics investments? The answer to this simple question is central in any attempt to quantify them with some degree of rigor. To make investment analyses consistent, repeatable, and valuable, it is critical to wring out as much subjectivity as possible during the evaluation process. This begins with a definition of terms and a description of assumptions.

Investors and investing
Investment should come from venture capital firms, corporate investment groups, angel investors, and other sources. Friends-and-family investments, government/non-governmental agency grants, and crowd-sourced funding are excluded.

Robotics and intelligent systems companies
Robotics companies must generate or expect to generate revenue from the production of robotics products (that sense, analyze, and act in the physical world), hardware or software subsystems and enabling technologies for robots, or services supporting robotics devices. For this analysis, autonomous vehicles (including technologies that support autonomous driving) and drones are considered robots, while 3D printers, CNC systems, and various types of “hard” automation are not.

Companies that are “robotic” in name only, or use the term “robot” to describe products and services that do not enable or support devices acting in the physical world, are excluded. For example, this includes “software robots” and robotic process automation. Many firms have multiple locations in different countries. Company locations given in the analysis are based on the publicly listed headquarters in legal documents, press releases, etc.

Verification
Funding information is collected from a number of public and private sources. These include press releases from corporations and investment groups, corporate briefings, market research firms, and association and industry publications. In addition, information comes from sessions at conferences and seminars, as well as during private interviews with industry representatives, investors, and others. Unverifiable investments are excluded and estimates are made where investment amounts are not provided or are unclear.

The post Robotics investments reach $521M in January appeared first on The Robot Report.

December 2022’s 55 robotics investments totaled US $1.14B, a 7.7% increase over December 2021’s funding total. Investment into companies providing robotics solutions for autonomous ground transportation such as sensors, autonomy ‘stacks’ and ‘drivers’, and whole cloth systems, was particularly strong.

Robotics investments for the month of December 2022 totaled US $1.14B (See Table 1, below). This figure was the result of 55 investments, and represents a 7.7% increase over December 2021’s funding total of $1.06B (representing 65 investments).

December 2022 investment into companies providing robotics solutions for autonomous ground transportation such as sensors, autonomy ‘stacks’ and ‘drivers’, and whole cloth systems, was robust (Einride, Helm.ai, Jiuyao Intelligent, Kuandeng, Kodiak Robotics, PhiGent Robotics, and Fixposition provide examples). Firms providing products and services for industrial inspection, mapping and surveying also attracted solid funding amounts (Energy Robotics, Flybotix, and Exyn Technologies, for example).

Companies developing robotic interventional systems, primarily surgical platforms, were well represented (i.e. LEM Surgical, Ronovo Surgical, and Sinovation Medical), as well as developers of field robotics solutions such as Scythe Robotics and Naïo Technologies.

Table 1: December 2022 Robotics Funding and Investment

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

As described in Figure 1, China and the USA received the bulk of the funding rounds. The same holds for the total amount of December 2022 investment, with the exception of outlier Sweden which was buoyed by hundreds of millions poured in Swedish firm Einride, a producer of driverless electric trucks.

Figure 1: December 2022 Robotics Investment by Country

December 2022 funding and investment types followed a familiar pattern, with numerous early stage investments, and with large investments coming in later rounds or by other means.

Figure 2: December 2022 Robotics Funding Amounts by Investment Type

Editors’ note: What defines robotics investments? The answer to this simple question is central in any attempt to quantify them with some degree of rigor. To make investment analyses consistent, repeatable, and valuable, it is critical to wring out as much subjectivity as possible during the evaluation process. This begins with a definition of terms and a description of assumptions.

Investors and investing
Investment should come from venture capital firms, corporate investment groups, angel investors, and other sources. Friends-and-family investments, government/non-governmental agency grants, and crowd-sourced funding are excluded.

Robotics and intelligent systems companies
Robotics companies must generate or expect to generate revenue from the production of robotics products (that sense, analyze, and act in the physical world), hardware or software subsystems and enabling technologies for robots, or services supporting robotics devices. For this analysis, autonomous vehicles (including technologies that support autonomous driving) and drones are considered robots, while 3D printers, CNC systems, and various types of “hard” automation are not.

Companies that are “robotic” in name only, or use the term “robot” to describe products and services that that do not enable or support devices acting in the physical world, are excluded. For example, this includes “software robots” and robotic process automation. Many firms have multiple locations in different countries. Company locations given in the analysis are based on the publicly listed headquarters in legal documents, press releases, etc.

Verification
Funding information is collected from a number of public and private sources. These include press releases from corporations and investment groups, corporate briefings, imarket research firms, and association and industry publications. In addition, information comes from sessions at conferences and seminars, as well as during private interviews with industry representatives, investors, and others. Unverifiable investments are excluded and estimates are made where investment amounts are not provided.

The post What slowdown? – December 2022 robotics investments reach $1.14B appeared first on The Robot Report.

For over a decade, Robotics Business Review’s RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards have highlighted the most creative and influential innovations from around the world that have advanced the state of robotics. RBR invites technology, product, and services providers to submit an entry for the 2023 RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards.

The deadline for submission is January 10th, 2023. The entry form is below, following the description of the RBR50 awards and eligibility requirements. RBR is a sister publication of The Robot Report.

Many Innovation Types

Robotics innovation can take many forms – technological, business, market, and investment – that act individually, or in confluence, to accelerate robotics sector growth. The sources for robotics innovation can be technology, product, and services providers, but also academics and researchers, governmental and private business development groups, and the investment community.

1. Business and Management Innovation

Entries should describe business and management initiatives or practices that enhance a company’s commercial standing, foster robotics sector growth or improve society. Innovative business and management categories include:

• Leadership – Setting goals and taking action that results in improved business performance, outperforming the competition, inspiring others, or other positive conclusions
• Market engagement – Actions that increase the interaction between a company and its customers, partners, or the robotics sector
• Business models – Novel approaches for selling robotics products or services, including market expansion, new product introduction, acquisitions and investments, and more
• Social good – Initiatives that provide a positive social benefit such as improving sustainability, encouraging diversity, increasing workplace safety, and supporting underserved groups or communities

2. Technology, Product, and Services Innovation

Submissions should describe innovative technologies or services that entered the commercial market after January 2021.

• Primary or Applied Research – Research published between January 1, 2022 and December 31, 2022 focused on robotics, automation and supporting technologies and methods that are expected to advance the commercial robotics sector
• Product Introduction – Innovative technologies and products that were released and made available for sale to individuals, companies and other groups in the industrial, commercial, public sector, and consumer markets
• Services Introduction – Includes newly introduced business, engineering or technology services. Examples include design, development and manufacturing services, legal services, and Robotics-as-a-Service offerings

3. Application and Market Innovation

These RBR50 entries should feature newly developed applications for specific sectors that deliver value, provide entry to new markets, or improve performance over existing approaches by improving productivity, increasing quality, reducing costs, etc. Markets include:

• Agriculture
• Construction / demolition
• Consumer
• Defense / public safety / security
• Energy / utilities
• Healthcare / medical / rehabilitation
• Hospitality
• Manufacturing
• Mining
• Retail / wholesale
• Supply chain / logistics
• Transportation

Benefits for RBR50 Honorees

The RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards offers a unique branding, marketing and education opportunity. Benefits for RBR50 honorees include:

• A press release announcing the winners of the 2023 RBR50 Innovation Awards will be sent out over the wire, as well as pushed through WTWH Media’s Robotics Group extensive technology and business social media channels.
• A searchable listing and profiles of the 2023 RBR50 Innovation Award winners will be hosted on Robotics Business Review. RBR50 winners will be cited as part of ongoing robotics coverage throughout the year.
• 2023 RBR50 Innovation Award winners will be included in a special RBR50 Innovation Award publication produced by The Robot Report to be inserted into Design World Magazine as a print publication (40,000 circulation) and downloadable e-magazine.

For a searchable listing of the 2022 RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards winners click HERE.

To download The Robot Report June 2022 Digital Edition featuring the RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards click HERE.

Eligibility

To be eligible for the 2023 RBR50 Robotics Innovation Award, the submission must refer to an innovation that was initiated, released, or executed between January 1, 2022 and December 31, 2022. The selected 2023 RBR50 honorees will be announced in mid-April, 2023.

Questions?

For questions regarding the 2023 RBR50 innovation awards, please contact Dan Kara or Steve Crowe

The post Nominations open for 2023 RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards appeared first on The Robot Report.

WTWH Media invites you to submit a session abstract to be considered for presentation at the RoboBusiness Conference & Expo, to be held October 19-20, 2022 at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.

RoboBusiness has been reimagined for 2022 to better serve attendees and the robotics sector as a whole. The event is specifically designed to reveal the most impactful research advances, identify the most promising opportunities, illustrate the leading technical, business and investment trends, as well as highlight public and private sector robotics business development initiatives designed to support robotics innovation and sector growth.

RoboBusiness is seeking thought-provoking sessions delivered by compelling speakers in each of the four tracks listed below:

• Identifying Opportunities Track – What are the best commercial opportunities for robotics solutions now and in the future, and what are the business, social, political trends and other factors driving the global robotics sector?
• Exploiting Technologies Track – What are the latest enabling technologies that are available to the developer of commercial robotics systems, and how they can be utilized to design, develop, test, deploy and manage commercial robotics solutions?
• Driving Business Track – What are the business development, investment and partnership opportunities specific to producers of commercial class robotics solutions, as well as best practices for running robotics companies more efficiently?
• Transforming Industries Track – What are the key challenges and gating factors, and hence the foremost opportunities, specific to a given vertical market segment such as manufacturing, healthcare, logistics, agriculture, energy and more.

Complete track descriptions and topics can be found HERE.

Submission Form

Deadline
The entry deadline for submitting speaker proposals is June 30, 2022.

All speakers receive:

• Complimentary full registration with admission to all keynotes, general sessions, panels and special events
• All breakfasts, lunches and receptions
• Complimentary guest registrations up to two attendees

Co-Located Events
RoboBusiness will be co-located with the Field Robotics Engineering Forum (FREF), an international conference and exposition designed to provide engineers, engineering management, business professionals and others, with the information, guidance and peer networking opportunities they require to successfully develop and safely deploy the next generation of field robotics systems for operation in wide-ranging, outdoor, dynamic environments.

Also co-located with RoboBusiness is DeviceTalks West, the premier industry event for medical technology professionals, currently in its ninth year. Both events attract engineering and business professionals from a broad range of healthcare and medical technology backgrounds.

Sponsorship Opportunities
For information about sponsorship and exhibition opportunities, download the prospectus. Questions regarding sponsorship opportunities should be directed to Courtney Nagle at cnagle[AT]wtwhmedia.com.

Conference Programming
For questions regarding RoboBusiness conference programming, contact Dan Kara at dkara[AT]wtwhmedia.com.

About WTWH Media
WTWH Media is an integrated media company serving engineering, business and investment professionals through 50+ websites, 5 print publications, along with many other technical and business events. WTWH’s Robotics Group produces The Robot Report, Robotics Business Review, Collaborative Robotics Trends and Mobile Robot Guide, online technical, business and investment news and information portals focused on robotics and intelligent systems. WTWH Media also produces leading in-person robotics conferences including the Robotics Summit & Expo, RoboBusiness the Field Robotics Engineering Forum and the Healthcare Robotics Engineering Forum. See www.wtwhmedia.com for more information.

The post RoboBusiness call for speakers now open appeared first on The Robot Report.

For over a decade, Robotics Business Review’s RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards have highlighted the most creative and influential innovations from around the world that have advanced the state of robotics. Robotics Business Review is currently seeking nominations for the 2022 Robotics Innovation Awards.

Many Innovation Types
Robotics innovation can take many forms – technological, business, market, and investment – that act individually, or in confluence, to accelerate robotics sector growth. The sources for robotics innovation can be technology, product, and services providers, but also academics and researchers, governmental and private business development groups, and the investment community.

How to Apply
The editors of Robotics Business Review are seeking submissions from companies, research and development organizations, business development and investment groups, and others for consideration for the 2022 RBR50 awards.

• Robotics Innovations – Each submission must refer to an innovation that was initiated, released, or executed between January 1, 2021 and February 1, 2022.
• Categories – Each submission must fall under one of three categories: 1. Business and management innovation; 2. Technology, services, and research innovation; or 3. Application and market innovation (see descriptions below)
• Submission Form – A link to the submission for is below. The deadline to apply is Friday, February 11, 2022.

Three Categories

Business and Management Innovation
Entries should describe business and management initiatives or practices that enhance a company’s commercial standing, foster robotics sector growth, or improve society. Innovative business and management categories include:

• Leadership – Setting goals and taking action that results in improved business performance, outperforming the competition, inspiring others, or other positive conclusions
• Market engagement – Actions that increase the interaction between a company and its customers, partners, or the robotics sector
• Business models – Novel approaches for selling robotics products or services, including market expansion, new product introduction, acquisitions and investments, and more
• Social good – Initiatives that provide a positive social benefit such as improving sustainability, encouraging diversity, increasing workplace safety, and supporting underserved groups or communities

Research, Product Technology, and Services Innovation
Submissions should describe innovative technologies or services that entered the commercial market after January 2021.

• Primary or Applied Research – Research published between January 1, 2021 and February 1, 2022 focused on robotics, automation and supporting technologies and methods that are expected to advance the commercial robotics sector.
• Product Introduction – Innovative technologies and products that were released and made available for sale to individuals, companies and other groups in the industrial, commercial, public sector, and consumer markets.
• Services Introduction – Includes newly introduced business, engineering or technology services. Examples include design, development and manufacturing services, legal services, and Robotics-as-a-Service offerings.

Application and Market Innovation
These RBR50 entries should feature newly developed applications for specific sectors that deliver value, provide entry to new markets, or improve performance over existing approaches by improving productivity, increasing quality, reducing costs, etc. Markets include:

• Agriculture
• Construction / demolition
• Consumer
• Defense / public safety / security
• Energy / utilities
• Healthcare / medical / rehabilitation
• Hospitality
• Manufacturing
• Mining
• Retail / wholesale
• Supply chain / logistics
• Transportation

Benefits for RBR50 Honorees
The RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards presents technology, product, and services providers, along with researchers, business development organizations and investment groups, a unique branding, marketing and education opportunity. Benefits for RBR50 honorees include:

• • A press release announcing the winners of the 2022 RBR50 Innovation Awards will be sent out over, as well as pushed through WTWH Media’s Robotics Group extensive technology and business social media channels.
  • A searchable listing and profiles of the 2022 RBR50 Innovation Award winners will be hosted on Robotics Business Review. RBR50 winners will be cited as part of ongoing robotics coverage throughout the year.
  • 2022 RBR50 Innovation Award winners will be included in a special RBR50 Innovation Award publication produced by The Robot Report to be inserted into Design World Magazine as print publication (40,000 circulation) and downloadable e-magazine.

Examples

• For a searchable listing of the 2021 RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards winners click HERE.
• To download The Robot Report June 2021 Digital Edition featuring the RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards click HERE.

Questions?
For questions regarding the 2021 RBR50 innovation awards, please contact editors Dan Kara or Steve Crowe

About WTWH Media
WTWH Media LLC is an integrated media company serving engineering, business, and investment professionals through more than 50 Web sites, five print publications, and many other technical and business events. The “WTWH Network” includes The Robot Report, Collaborative Robotics Trends, Robotics Business Review and Mobile Robot Guide online technical, business, and investment news and information portals focused on robotics and intelligent systems. WTWH Media also produces leading in-person robotics conferences, including the Robotics Summit & Expo, RoboBusiness, and the Healthcare Robotics Engineering Forum, as well as the RoboBusiness Direct online webinar program.

The post Nominations open for 2022 RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards appeared first on The Robot Report.

WTWH Media invites you to submit a session abstract to be considered for presentation at the Healthcare Robotics Engineering Forum, to be held May 10-11, 2022 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.

The Healthcare Robotics Engineering Forum (HREF) is designed specifically to provide engineers and engineering management with the technical information and guidance they need to more quickly and easily design, develop and manufacture the next generation of commercial class healthcare robotics systems.

Event organizers are seeking thought-provoking sessions from compelling speakers in each of the following four tracks:

• Enabling Technologies Track
• Tools and Platforms Track
• Design and Development Track
• Management and Opportunity Track

Complete track descriptions and topics can be found HERE.

Submission Form
The form for submitting speaking proposals online can be found HERE. The entry deadline for submitting speaker proposals is January 7, 2022.

All speakers receive:

• Complimentary full registration with admission to all keynotes, general sessions, panels and special events
• All breakfasts, lunches and receptions
• Complimentary guest registrations up to two attendees

Co-Located Events
The Healthcare Robotics Engineering Forum will be co-located with the Robotics Summit & Expo, an international conference and exposition focused on the design, development, manufacturing and delivery of commercial-class robotics systems. Also co-located with the HREF event is DeviceTalks Boston, the premier industry event for medical technology professionals, currently in its ninth year. Both events attract engineering and business professionals from a broad range of healthcare and medical technology backgrounds.

Sponsorship Opportunities
For information about sponsorship and exhibition opportunities, download the prospectus. Question regarding sponsorship opportunities should be directed to Courtney Nagle at cnagle[AT]wtwhmedia.com.

Conference Programming
For questions regarding Healthcare Robotics Engineering Forum conference programming, contact Dan Kara at dkara[AT]wtwhmedia.com.

About WTWH Media
WTWH Media is an integrated media company serving engineering, business and investment professionals through 50+ websites, 5 print publications, along with many other technical and business events. WTWH’s Robotics Group produces The Robot Report, Robotics Business Review, Collaborative Robotics Trends and Mobile Robot Guide, online technical, business and investment news and information portals focused on robotics and intelligent systems. WTWH Media also produces leading in-person robotics conferences including the Robotics Summit & Expo, the RoboBusiness Conference & Exposition and the Healthcare Robotics Engineering Forum. See www.wtwhmedia.com for more information.

The post Healthcare Robotics Engineering Forum call for speakers appeared first on The Robot Report.

Corporate logistics and supply chain groups have adopted a wide range of automation technologies to improve the operational efficacy and efficiency in warehouses and distribution centers, including robotics systems. Robotics technologies are being employed in warehouses and distribution centers at an ever-increasing rate to automate costly, dangerous and time-consuming activities. Moreover, the newer classes of robotic solutions provide companies with a high degree of flexibility, a capability lacking in many earlier forms of warehouse and distribution center automation. This comes at a time when flexibility is viewed by corporate management as a key strategic differentiator and business facilitator.

In this informative webinar, being held Wednesday, Dec 15, 2021 (11 AM PT), examples of how robotic automation is being applied within warehouses and distribution centers will be shared. During the session, robotics solution providers and integrators will be highlighted. Specific use cases will be discussed. ROI and other evaluation metrics will be provided where warranted.

Topics covered in this session include:

• Loading / Unloading
• Palletizing / Depalletizing
• Sorting and Staging
• Picking Operations
• Transportation
• Packing / Unpacking

Date / Time – Wednesday, Dec 15, 2021 (11 AM PT)

Sponsored By:

Your Speaker

Dan Kara, Vice President, Robotics, WTWH Media

Dan Kara is Vice President, Robotics at WTWH Media where he is chartered with driving the company’s robotics initiatives. Prior to joining WTWH, he was Practice Director, Robotics and Intelligent Systems at ABI Research and Chief Research Officer for Myria RAS, both research and advisory services firms focused on automation, robotics and intelligent systems. Dan was also President of Robotics Trends, an integrated media and research firm serving the personal, service and industrial robotics markets. Dan has also worked as Executive Vice President of Intermedia Group, and Director of Research at Ullo International.

There is no charge to attend this webinar.

The post Webinar: robots for warehouses and distribution centers appeared first on The Robot Report.

For over a decade, Robotics Business Review’s RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards have highlighted the most creative and influential innovations from around the world that have advanced the state of robotics. Robotics Business Review is currently seeking nominations for the 2021 RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards. The nomination deadline ends Friday, April 16, 2021.

Innovation and transformation

For the robotics sector, the importance of innovation has never been greater. Innovation is critical to success and long-term competitiveness among regions, vertical markets, individual companies. Not only can innovations result in new products and services, but they can also transform industries and societies.

All forms of innovation

At its core, each innovation begins with an idea that can influence, improve, or create a solution. The solicitation and selection process for the 2021 RBR50 understands that innovation can take many forms – technological, business, market, and investment – that act individually, or in confluence, to accelerate robotics sector growth. The sources for robotics innovation can be technology, product, and services providers, but also academics and researchers, governmental and private business development groups, and the investment community.

How to apply

The editors of Robotics Business Review are seeking submissions from companies, research and development organizations, business development and investment groups, and others for consideration for the 2021 RBR50 awards.

• Each submission must refer to an innovation that was initiated, released, or executed between January 1, 2020 and April 1, 2021.
• Each submission must fall under one of three categories: 1. Business and management innovation; 2. Technology, services, and research innovation; or 3. Application and market innovation (see descriptions below)
• The deadline to apply is Friday, April 16, 2021.

RBR50 Categories

1. Business and Management Innovation
Entries should describe business and management initiatives or practices that enhance a company’s commercial standing, foster robotics sector growth, or improve society. Innovative business and management categories include:

• Leadership: setting goals and taking action that results in improved business performance, outperforming the competition, inspiring others, or other positive conclusions
• Market engagement: actions that increase the interaction between a company and its customers, partners, or the robotics sector
• Business models: novel approaches for selling robotics products or services, including market expansion, new product introduction, acquisitions and investments, and more
• Social good: initiatives that provide a positive social benefit such as improving sustainability, encouraging diversity, increasing workplace safety, and supporting underserved groups or communities

2. Research, Product Technology, and Services Innovation
Submissions should describe innovative technologies or services that entered the commercial market after January 2019.

• Primary or Applied Research: Research published between January 1, 2020 and March 31, 2021 focused on robotics, automation and supporting technologies and methods that are expected to advance the commercial robotics sector.
• Product Introduction: Innovative technologies and products that were released and made available for sale to individuals, companies and other groups in the industrial, commercial, public sector, and consumer markets.
• Services Introduction: Includes newly introduced business, engineering or technology services. Examples include design, development and manufacturing services, legal services, and Robotics-as-a-Service offerings.

3. Application and Market Innovation
RBR50 entries should feature newly developed applications for specific sectors that deliver value, provide entry to new markets, or improve performance over existing approaches by improving productivity, increasing quality, reducing costs, etc. Markets include:

• Agriculture
• Construction / demolition
• Consumer
• Defense / public safety / security
• Energy / utilities
• Healthcare / medical / rehabilitation
• Hospitality
• Manufacturing
• Mining
• Retail / wholesale
• Supply chain / logistics
• Transportation

Benefits for RBR50 honorees

The RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards presents technology, product, and services providers, along with researchers, business development organizations and investment groups, a unique branding, marketing and education opportunity. Benefits for RBR50 honorees include:

• A press release announcing the winners of the 2021 RBR50 Innovation Awards will be sent out over, as well as pushed through WTWH Media’s Robotics Group extensive technology and business social media channels.
• A searchable listing and profiles of the 2021 RBR50 Innovation Award winners will be hosted on Robotics Business Review. RBR50 winners will be cited as part of ongoing robotics coverage throughout the year.
• 2021 RBR50 Innovation Award winners will be included in a special RBR50 Innovation Award publication produced by The Robot Report to be inserted into Design World Magazine as a print publication (40,000 circulation) and downloadable e-magazine.

Examples

For a searchable listing of the 2020 RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards winners click HERE. To view The Robot Report June 2020 Digital Edition featuring the RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards click HERE.

Questions?

For questions regarding the 2021 RBR50 innovation awards, please contact editors Dan Kara or Steve Crowe.

About WTWH Media

WTWH Media LLC is an integrated media company serving engineering, business, and investment professionals through more than 50 websites, five print publications, and many other technical and business events. The “WTWH Network” includes The Robot Report, Collaborative Robotics Trends, and Robotics Business Review, online technical, business, and investment news and information portals focused on robotics and intelligent systems. WTWH Media also produces leading in-person robotics conferences, including the Robotics Summit & Expo, RoboBusiness, and the Healthcare Robotics Engineering Forum, as well as the RoboBusiness Direct online webinar program.

The post RBR50 nomination deadline is Friday, April 16 appeared first on The Robot Report.

RoboBusiness Direct is designed to foster robotics innovation, expand robotics business opportunities, and build a community of like-minded problem solvers with the goal of driving the growth of robotics businesses, as well as the global robotics sector.

Brightest Minds, Leading Companies
More than a webinar or virtual event, RoboBusiness Direct is an ongoing, integrated series of presentations and media coverage delivered by brightest minds from the leading robotics and automation companies from around the world. The program runs weekly from August 27, 2020 until December 17. More information about the RoboBusiness Direct speakers, sessions schedule can be found HERE.

Registration for RoboBusiness Direct is now open. There is no charge to register for RoboBusiness Direct programs.

Developing Robots That Can Promote Social-Emotional Learning in Children
–  Paolo Pirjanian, CEO, Embodied
August 27, 2020

What’s New and Next in Robotics for Manufacturing
–  Gregorio Balandran, R&T Engineered Factory, Automation Manager, Spirit AeroSystems
–  Satyandra K. Gupta, Professor, Viterbi School of Engineering, University of Southern California
–  Arnold Kravitz, Chief Technology Officer, ARM Institute
–  Elena Messina, Group Leader, Manipulation & Mobility, National Institute of Standards and Technology
–  Suzy Teele, Head of Marketing and Communications, ARM Institute
September 03, 2020

The Business Value of Autonomous Mobile Robots
–  Ash Sharma, Managing Director, Interact Analysis
September 10, 2020

Using ROS for Reproducible Robotics Results
–  Ricardo Tellez, CEO, The Construct
September 18, 2020

Radical Transparency: Digital Manufacturing Ecosystems Deliver Traceability, Compliance & Quality
–  Jean Olivieri, Chief Operating Officer, Fictiv
September 22, 2020

The Healthcare Robotics Opportunity Landscape
–  Corey Ryan, Manager of Medical Robotics,  KUKA Robotics
September 24, 2020

A New Dawn of Real-World Robots
–  Rodney Brooks, Founder and CTO, Robust.AI
October 01, 2020

Delivering on the Promise of Autonomy – The Importance of Constrained ODD for a Faster Time to Market
–  Apeksha Kumavat, Co-Founder and Chief Engineer, Gatik
October 08, 2020

Advanced Actuation as a Robotics Capabilities Enablers
–  Brian Coyne, VP of Engineering, Harmonic Drive LLC
October 15, 2020

Building a Surgical Robotics Startup to Succeed
–  Dwight Meglan, Co-founder and CTO, Heartlander Surgical
October 22, 2020

Exoskeletons and Assistive Systems
–  Conor Walsh, Professor, Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University
October 29, 2020

The Future of Robotics: Research to Commercialization
–  Tom Ryden, Executive Director, MassRobotics
November 05, 2020

Digital Transformation: Creating Smarter, More Connected Robots
–  John Mcleney, Corporate Vice President of Strategy, PTC
November 13, 2020

The Commercial Unmanned Maritime Systems Opportunity
–  Nicolaus Radford, CEO and CTO, Houston Mechatronics
November 20, 2020

The Commercial Unmanned Maritime Systems Opportunity
–  Matthew Robinson, ROS-Americas Program Manager, Southwest Research Institute
December 3, 2020

The Future of Human Robot Collaboration:Developing the Next Generation of Industrial, Commercial and Consumer Robotics Systems
  –  Laura Major, CTO, Motional
–  Julie Shah, Associate Professor, Head of Interactive Robotics Group, MIT
  –  Tom Ryden, Executive Director, MassRobotics
December 11, 2020

Surgical Robotics: Hype, Hope, or Improved Health Outcomes?
–  Maria Shepherd, President, Medi-Vantage
December 17, 2020

Information
For questions regarding RoboBusiness Direct, please contact Dan Kara, VP, Robotics at WTWH Media at dkara[at]wtwhmedia.com.

For RoboBusiness Direct sponsorship information, please contact Courtney Nagle, VP, Business Development, WTWH Media at cseel[@]wtwhmedia.com.

Produced By

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Wednesday, October 30, 2019
11:30 AM ET / 8 AM PT

You have seen the news, read the announcements and analyzed the reports. The robotics sector continues to expand rapidly, with new products, services and companies continually emerging, and supporting an ever-increasing range of applications across the consumer, commercial, and civil markets. Ongoing technological advances, along with dramatically increasing levels of investment, ensures that the proliferation of robotics systems into all aspects of society will continue, and at an ever-accelerating rate.

A massive opportunity

For members of the robotics solution provider value chain, the burgeoning robotics market represents a massive opportunity. Yet to maximize that opportunity, sales, marketing and branding initiatives must reach those who can consume, and ultimately benefit from, outreach efforts.

An optimal platform

In this webinar, Dan Kara, VP of Robotics at WTWH Media, will describe the many sales, marketing and branding options available to solution providers through the WTWH Robotics Network. He will also explain why the WTWH Robotics Network is uniquely qualified to assist robotics solutions providers optimize their outreach, providing them the optimal platform for educating, supporting and engaging with developers of robotics products and services, along with end users of the same. Topics include:

• The Robotics Opportunity Landscape
• The WTWH Robotics Network Difference
• WTWH Media’s Robotics Offerings – Events, Online Content, Publications
• Webinars
• Digital Marketing
• Summary and Q&A

Who should attend

This webinar is designed for companies that offer robotics technologies, products and services, and particularly for those charged with developing and executing their company’s sales, marketing and branding programs, along with business development initiatives.

• Sales and Marketing Professionals
• Business Development Groups
• Corporate Management

Featured speaker

Dan Kara
Vice President, Robotics
WTWH Media

The post Maximizing the Robotics Opportunity: Driving Sales, Marketing & Branding with Integrated Media appeared first on The Robot Report.

Inaugural conference and expo addressing healthcare robotics engineering challenges co-locates with DeviceTalks, a leading technical and business development event for the medical device sector.

Business-to-Business publisher WTWH Media has announced the launch of the Healthcare Robotics Engineering Forum, an international conference and expo focused on easing, speeding and improving the design, development and manufacture of the next generation of commercial class healthcare robotics solutions. The Healthcare Robotics Engineering Forum takes place December 9-10, 2019 at the Santa Clara Convention Center. See www.healthcareroboticsforum.com for more details.

Dan Kara, VP of Robotics at WTWH Media notes, “Robotics technology is viewed by healthcare professionals, business leaders and government officials as playing a major role in addressing a wide range of pressing healthcare issues, and as a key means of providing better healthcare services while controlling costs. Yet even with considerable amounts of robotics research, investment funding, and available enabling technologies, commercial healthcare robotics output lags. This is largely due to the difficulty of designing and developing robust, functional healthcare robotics systems. The Healthcare Robotic Engineering Forum was specifically developed to address healthcare robotics engineering challenges, so that new systems and solutions can be brought to market faster and more easily”.

Designing and Developing Healthcare Robotics Solutions
The Healthcare Robotics Engineering Forum keynotes, general sessions and expo floor are specifically designed to impart to technical professionals the information they need to successfully develop and manufacture healthcare robotics technologies, products and services including:

–  Interventional / Surgical Systems

–  Rehabilitation / Therapeutic Systems

– Diagnostic / Training Systems

– Assistive Technology Systems

– Prosthetic / Orthotic Systems

– Lifestyle Enhancement Systems

– Hospital Automation Systems

– Laboratory Automation Systems

– Smart Living Spaces

– More…

Tracks in the Healthcare Robotics Engineering Forum include:

 –  Enabling Technologies Track

 – Tools and Platforms Track

 –  Design and Development Track

 –  Management and Opportunity Track

Co-locating With DeviceTalks West
The Healthcare Robotics Engineering Forum will co-locate with DeviceTalks West, the premier industry event for medical technology professionals, currently in its eighth year. Powered by WTWH Media’s industry leading MassDevice, a medical device business journal, DeviceTalks attracts engineering and business professionals from a broad range of backgrounds and offers an expo floor featuring leading medical technology companies. See https://west.devicetalks.com/.

Contact
To receive additional information regarding the Healthcare Robotics Engineering Forum, please contact Christina Lograsdo (E: clograsso [AT] wtwhmedia.com, P: 216-386-6688).

About WTWH Media, LLC
WTWH Media is an integrated media company serving engineering, business and investment professionals through 40+ web sites, 5 print publications, along with many other technical and business events. The “WTWH Network” includes The Robot Report, an online technical, business and investment news and information portal focused on robotics and intelligent systems (www.therobotreport.com), as well as the Robotics Summit & Expo (www.roboticssummit.com). See www.wtwhmedia.com

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NVIDIA’s Jetson Nano and Jetson Nano Development Kit.

Low cost, yet very powerful, AI optimized compute resources such as NVIDIA’s Jetson Nano brings machine learning to the masses, and also has the potential of replacing the dominant paradigm of centralized, machine learning training and inferencing architectures.

Synopsis

During his keynote session at the recent NVIDIA GTC event in San Jose, California, NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huan introduced the NVIDIA Jetson Nano, a small, powerful, low power edge computing platform for machine learning (ML) inferencing. The Nano is NVIDIA’s latest addition to the Jetson family of embedded computing boards following the release of the Jetson TX1 (2015), the TX2 (2017), and the Jetson AGX Xavier (2018) platforms.

Salients

General Specs – The Jetson Nano is powered by quad-core ARM A57 processor running at 1.43 GHz, supported by a 128-core Maxwell GPU. The platform delivers 472 GFLOPS of compute performance, while using just 5W of power. HEVC video encode and decode is supported up to 4K 60. The Nano also comes with 4 GB of Low-Power DDR SDRAM.

Two Versions – The Jetson Nano comes in two flavors. The first, the “Jetson Nano Development Kit”, includes a carrier board with 40 general-purpose input/outputs (GPIOs), and provides a host of connectors, ports and interfaces for HDMI, gigabit Ethernet, WiFi, USB (4), and MIPI CSI for cameras. Storage comes by way of an SD card. The production-ready (in NVIDIA parlance) “Jetson Nano” ships minus a carrier board, but includes 16 GB of eMMC Flash. The “Jetson Nano Development Kit” can be had for only US $99 and is available now, while the “Jetson Nano”, priced at US $129 in quantities over 1,000, will become available in June 2019.

AI on the Edge – With its small size and numerous connectivity options, the Jetson Nano is ideally suited as an IoT edge device. But like NVIDIA’s TX1 and TX2 platforms, the Jetson Nano is primarily engineered to support AI on the edge – really machine learning / deep learning on the edge. NVIDIA specifically markets the Nano as such. The Nano has taken its place in NVIDIA’s Jetson machine learning solution continuum.

Analysis

Bringing the Edge AI Competition – Some industry pundits have stated that the Jetson Nano is a competitor low cost, single-board, computer targeted to the maker community such as the Raspberry Pi 3. But the real competition is with other high performance, edge machine learning inference enablers, such as Google’s Coral development board and Intel’s Up Squared AI Vision X Developer Ki. The Intel Up Squared development platform is based on the company’s Atom X7 processor and Movidius X accelerator, includes 8 GB LPDDR4 RAM and is priced at $420. The Google Coral board is built on an ARM Cortex-A53 processor and Google Edge TPU. It ships with 1 GB of RAM and cost $149.

Seeding the Market – NVIDIA has a long history of developing and supporting a developer community for its products. The company repeatedly cites a figure of “more than 200,000” Jetson developers worldwide. The Nano is the prefect platform for enlarging the Jetson developer community. The system’s performance attributes approximate that of the higher-end Jetson models making it appropriate for commercial work, while the low cost of the Jetson Nano makes it attractive for researchers, educators, the maker community and other technology enthusiasts seeking an entry-level AI platform.

An ‘Open’ Platform Play – The Nano is the latest entry into the NVIDIA’s Jetson portfolio of embedded computing platforms, joining the Jetson TX2 and Jetson Xavier. While each platform is optimized for certain application classes – low cost, edge ML for the Nano, vision processing for the Jetson TX2, and robotics and autonomous systems for the Xavier – all Jetson family members are enabled and supported by the NVIDIA’s programming model and solution stack. For example, all Jetson developers can utilize NVIDIA’s CUDA-X GPU acceleration libraries for data science and machine learning. The same holds for NVIDIA’s JetPack (including CUDA, cuDNN, and TensorRT) and DeepStream (soon) SDKs. The Jetson family is also agnostic regarding machine learning frameworks, supporting the most widely used frameworks such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, Caffe, and MXNet, their ‘lite’ equivalents, well as less common libraries and tools.

Sun Sets on Jetson TX1 – The Jetson Nano is a pivot on the Jetson TX1. Apart from the module size and GPU – a 128-core Maxwell in the case of the Jetson Nano, and 256-core Maxwell for the TX1 – the platforms are remarkably similar. NVIDIA has confirmed as much and has indicated that developers should opt for the Jetson Nano or one of the three Jetson TX2 variants for future work (the TX1 will still be supported for the foreseeable future, however). The Jetson TX2 family includes the original Jetson TX2, the Jetson TX2i (industrial temperatures), and the 4GB Jetson TX2.

Disrupting Cloud Machine Learning – Market research company IoT Analytics pegs the number of IoT edge devices at 7 million, a figure that excludes smartphones, tablets and laptops, and this figure is expected to rise to 22 billion by 2025. Computing power within these edge devices is also increasing dramatically. At the same time, connectivity, latency and security issues are driving the exploding interest, work and investment in machine learning on the edge (Edge ML). Machine learning is expanding from the datacenter to the edge, and Edge ML will become the dominant ML architecture going forward. But even more importantly, that dominant role will include both inferencing AND training.

Currently, the primary edge machine learning training and execution paradigm is highly centralized, with ML modeling, training and optimization taking place in the datacenter on banks of servers employing arrays of graphics processing units (GPUs) or other AI optimized processors. The resulting machine learning applications are distributed to cell phones, tablets and other mobile devices which either must have access software that runs off-device on distributed servers in the cloud, or execute locally, minimizing or eliminating the need to send data to distributed servers for further processing. In either case, training takes place in the datacenter.

With the advent of small size, low cost, yet very powerful compute resources such as NVIDIA’s Jetson Nano, this centralized model can give way to a decentralized approach where the training of machine learning models, too, can take place at the edge using techniques such as Google’s Federated Learning architecture. With Federated Learning (and other similar approaches), models are still downloaded to edge devices for inferencing, but the local model ‘learns’ with experience and then sends updates to the cloud, along with those of other, distributed, devices. In this way, training is enhanced (scores of decentralized, collaborating devices, consistent updates) and users’ data privacy is ensured.

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Hyundai’s Chairless Exoskeleton (H-CEX). (Credit: Hyundai)

The exoskeleton sector continues to evolve, and in some sense has begun
 to normalize. The medical, business and technical press has long reported on exoskeleton technologies designed for medical rehabilitation and as mobility aids, even though commercial success and large-scale adoption has not yet been realized. Recently, however, reportage, along with focus of a number of medical exoskeleton suppliers, has shifted to a new exo market – industrial exoskeletons.

Author’s Note: For this article, the meaning of the word term “industrial” has been expanded
 to include both the industrial sector and the commercial services sector. Companies in the industrial sector derive their revenue by providing tangible goods, material, and products (i.e. manufacturing, construction, agriculture, mining etc.). The commercial services sector is made up of companies that primarily derive revenue by providing intangible products and services (i.e. logistics, transportation, retail, healthcare, energy etc.).

The reason for this swing is straightforward. Exoskeletons designed for supporting manual labor tasks in industrial environments are now commercially available and proving themselves in the field. Sizable companies are trialing systems, research is ongoing, and new enabling technologies specifically designed for the exo market have been recently introduced. Standards and regulatory issues related to the use of exo in industrial settings, while significant, are not nearly as expansive and complex as that of their medical counterparts, and acquisition is
not dependent on insurance dollars or soft money sources such as grants. More importantly, the value proposition for the use of exos for industrial work is straightforward and ROI easily calculated.

Wearable robots

“Industrial exoskeletons” is the collective name given to mechanical devices worn by workers, whose construction mirrors the structure of operator’s limbs, joints, and muscles, works in tandem with them, and is utilized as a capabilities amplifier, or as a fatigue and strain reducer. Body weight support, lift assistance, load maintenance, positioning correction and body stabilization are common capabilities of industrial exoskeletons.

It is useful to think of industrial exoskeletons as wearable robots that exploit the intelligence of human operators, and the strength and endurance of industrial robots. Like traditional robots, they address tasks, especially repetitive tasks that cannot be automated using traditional methods, that are physically demanding. In this sense, exoskeleton technology can be seen as a bridging solution between the extremes of fully manual work and those tasks that demand typical industrial robots.

Sarcos Robotics’ Guardian XO. (Credit: Sarcos Robotics)

The wearable robotics market is still 
in its infancy, yet there already exists a number of companies offering compelling exo solutions. All of the products are worn by human operators, but the solutions themselves can differ considerably based on their intended use and supporting technologies. The diversity of currently available commercial exoskeleton solutions is also a reflection of the widely ranging backgrounds and core historical strengths of exoskeleton technologies suppliers. At the highest level, solutions can be distinguished according to their form factor, power requirements and construction material:

Arms, upper and lower body: Exo systems come in many forms, including systems that attach at the hip and have weight carried by the exo through to the floor such as Lockheed Martin’s FORTIS or Noonee’s Chairless Chair which lock in place and act as a seat when needed. Others, such as StrongArm Technologies’ FLx ErgoSkeleton, are upper body systems, while still others assist hands in gripping (Bioservo Technologies’ Ironhand, for example).

Powered and unpowered: Most of the commercial exoskeleton solutions make use of some form of battery to power actuation and assistance, although non-traditional power solutions such as compressed air are used by some. Examples of commercial class powered exoskeletons include ATOUN’s Power Assist ARM, Innophys’ Muscle Suit, Cyberdyne’s HAL for Labor Support, RB3D’s HERCULE, Sarcos Robotics’ Guardian XO and Noonee’s Chairless Chair.

In contrast to powered exoskeletons, unpowered or ‘passive’ exos increase strength and provide stability through a combination of human guided flexion/ extension and locking mechanisms. Unpowered exos for commercial and industrial use include Ottobock’s Paexo, Levitate Technologies’ AIRFRAME, suitX’s MAX Exoskeleton Suit, StrongArm Technologies’ FLx ErgoSkeleton, Laevo’s Laevo and Lockheed Martin’s Fortis.

Rigid and soft: Rigid exos can produce musculoskeletal stress and fatigue 
due to their weight, as well as the unnatural or constrained movement of the suit. As a result, a number of companies are developing new types of soft exoskeletons made of soft, lightweight, compliant materials. The systems themselves are powered with soft muscle actuators or compressed air, or use flexion/extension mechanisms. Bioservo Technologies’ Ironhand and Daiya Industry’s Power Assist Glove serve as examples. In a manner to first generation exoskeleton systems, groups developing soft exo systems for military, and even consumer applications, such as Harvard University and Seismic, respectively, are sure to target the industrial sector at some point.

Ford purchased 75 EksoVest exoskeletons from Ekso Bionics to reduce workforce injuries. (Credit: Ford)

Value proposition of industrial exoskeletons

The business benefits of commercial/industrial exoskeletons are intuitively obvious and some easily quantified. They include increased efficiency and improved productivity. In some instances, exoskeletons can be used in place of industrial robots, eliminating the need for expensive, “full on” automation solutions. Exoskeletons also have the potential of allowing aging workers to continue to perform labor intensive tasks.

Today, however, the primary advantage given for using exoskeletons for industrial work, and the key driver for adoption, is to decrease the number of worker related injuries, and by doing so reducing healthcare and disability costs. Improving worker health has the tangential effect of reducing employee turnover, among other benefits.

Adoption and testing

Technological advancement in exoskeleton enabling technologies, along with increasing familiarity on the part of businesses with the potential of exos, have resulted in the increased use of exoskeleton technologies in industrial settings. At this time, the manufacturing sector, particularly automotive manufacturing, along with other industries requiring labor intensive work such as the logistics, retail and construction fields, are the leading adopters of exoskeleton technologies. In some cases the exo systems are purchased outright, while many suppliers allow systems to be leased or made available as a service.

Adoption rates for exoskeletons can be difficult to quantify with a high degree of accuracy. As is common with other nascent technologies offering significant competitive advantage, reference customers are often unwilling to go public with their exoskeleton use cases. Recently, however, several large, international companies have come forward to openly describe their experiences with exoskeletons. Consider the following:

Hyundai: In October 2018, Hyundai Motor Group announced they would begin testing their Hyundai Vest Exoskeleton (H-VEX), exo technology that reduces pressure on workers’ neck and back, at a North American Hyundai-KIA factory. This follows the start of trials at the same plant beginning in August 2017 of the Hyundai Chairless Exoskeleton (H-CEX), a knee joint sustainability device that maintains the sitting position of workers. According to Hyundai, both the H-CEX and H-VEX systems are designed to reduce injuries and increase worker efficiency.

Ford: Following a pilot program begun in November 2017 with exoskeleton maker Ekso Bionics, Ford announced in August 2018 that the company would be introducing 75 of Ekso’s upper body exoskeletons across 15 automotive plants worldwide. Ford representatives have stated that use of the upper body exoskeletons, which assists employees performing overhead tasks, should reduce the number of repetitive motion injuries.

BMW: The BMW assembly plant in South Carolina is currently employing Levitate Technologies’ AIRFRAME unpowered, upper body exoskeleton. The systems are also being trialed at other BMW plants. Levitate representatives claim the AIRFRAME exo lowers exertion levels by up to 80% for tasks involving repetitive arm motion.

Lowe’s: In August 2017, Lowe’s Innovation Lab (LIL), the internal research branch of US$65 billion home improvement retailer Lowe’s, began trialing unpowered exoskeletons, ‘exosuits’ in Lowe’s parlance, at the company’s Christiansburg, VA store. The exosuits were developed conjointly by LIL and Virginia Tech’s Assistive Robotics Laboratory (ARL). The testing is being carried out by the Lowe’s stocking staff, who are using the exos for repeatedly lifting and moving heavy objects.

maxon motor’s Exoskeleton Drive. (Credit: maxon motor)

Enabling technologies

Advances in enabling technologies, especially for actuators, batteries and advanced materials, are reducing the costs and increasing the functionality of industrial exoskeletons, with speedier and wider adoption the result. Much of the innovation is driven by technologies targeted to the robotics sector, including those areas where med tech and robotics intersect such as robotic rehabilitation and quality of life systems.

Harmonic Drive’s lightweight, brushless FLA Rotary Acutators provides an example, as does the polymer bearings from igus which are used in unpowered exo from Levitate Technologies. The continuing need by the medical device and robotics markets for smaller, lighter and more capable enabling technologies is working in favor of those currently developing exoskeleton products.

Providers of technologies used in robotics systems and medical devices have also brought to market component technologies targeted specifially to exoskeleton developers, or have pushed marketing that emphasizes the suitability of items in their existing product lines for use in wearable robots. For example, maxon motor recently introduced a compact, low weight “Exoskeleton Drive” joint actuation unit that consists of a brushless DC motor with inertia optimized rotor and high resolution encoders.

Conclusion

Decades of exoskeleton research, advancements in enabling technologies, and increased investment, coupled with an intuitive, easily demonstrated value proposition, has resulted in a growing industrial exoskeleton sector. Pilot projects and trials have given way to day-to-day work. New products continue to enter the market.

Yet the industrial exoskeleton sector is still in its nascency, and the market opportunity is very large. For example, ABI Research finds that the current total addressable market (TAM) for industrial exoskeletons currently exceeds 2.6 million units. This figure dwarfs the number of systems that companies have brought to market, or will do so in the foreseeable future. The scope of the opportunity far exceeds even the most optimistic projections as to what suppliers can deliver.

The conclusion is obvious: the market potential for industrial exoskeletons is enormous, as are the rewards for entrepreneurial solution providers that can aggressively innovate and come to market with workable solutions delivering business value.

The post Industrial exoskeletons: new systems, improved technologies, increasing adoption appeared first on The Robot Report.

Robots can move – but not see – in all directions. The patented laser sensor SensePRO developed by the Fraunhofer Research Institution for Additive Manufacturing Technologies IAPT provides a solution to this problem.

Where am I? Like humans, robots also need to answer that question, while they tirelessly glue, weld or apply seals to workpieces. After all, the production of precision products depends on robot control systems knowing the location of the adhesive bonding head or welding head to the nearest millimeter at all times. This means the robot needs some sort of eye.

In the automotive industry and many other sectors, specialized sensors perform this function, most of which operate on the principle of laser triangulation. A laser diode projects a line of red light onto the workpiece, from which the light is reflected at a specific angle before being detected by a camera. From the position of the light striking the camera chip, the position and distance of the sensor with respect to the workpiece within the coordinate system can be calculated.

Conventional sensors limit the directional flexibility of robots. Photo courtesy Fraunhofer IAPT.

However, there is a problem with such systems: “Shadowing effect limits the flexibility of existing sensors. They also restrict the freedom of movement of the robot systems and integrating them is very labor-intensive,” says Mauritz Möller, head of the additive manufacturing systems department at the Fraunhofer Research Institution for Additive Manufacturing Technologies IAPT in Hamburg. The only way to measure height with conventional sensors is to mount them along the direction of processing. With these sensors, however, the robot is blind when it changes its direction of movement. Having to predefine the processing direction significantly limits the flexibility of the handling systems. The only alternatives are to use several sensors or additional axes – either of which, given today’s state-of-the-art technology, can sometimes cost more than the robot itself.

Patented Measuring Technique

Mauritz Möller and his colleagues Malte Buhr, Vishnuu Jothi Prakash and Julian Weber have developed an innovative solution called SensePRO. This compact sensor system measures 15 centimeters in diameter and is equipped with specially developed image processing algorithms, thus providing a shadow-free all-round field of view, and generating a 360° measurement field, offering complete flexibility with regard to the direction of measurement. No matter where the robot moves, at least one laser line is always optimally positioned, supplying precise positional information to the camera.

The innovative SensePRO sensor provides a 360° all-round field of view for process control and quality assurance. Photo courtesy Fraunhofer IAPT.

This approach also solves another problem – shadowing of the laser light by components with complex shapes. The researchers have now patented the technique. No additional programming is required to integrate the new sensor system in existing robot systems. It can be employed completely flexibly and, above all, reliably in all adhesive bonding and welding processes. The technique significantly simplifies process control and quality assurance – with just one sensor.

Intelligent Thermal Management

To operate over long periods in harsh production environments, the sensor contains a cooling module, which utilizes either water or air. To enhance cooling, the optical bench on which the laser diodes and cameras are mounted has an internal cooling structure. Due to its highly complex shape, the only way to produce it is by 3D printing. This intelligent thermal management system extends the sensor’s service life. The sensor is designed to fit robots made by all leading manufacturers, from Kuka to Fanuc, and is well suited for any conceivable application scenarios. As a result, it can be easily integrated into existing production systems.

SensePRO is expected to be ready for full-scale production in 2021. Since no competing systems are currently available, SensePRO has a good chance to successfully establish itself in the rapidly growing industrial robot market. In Germany, around 1,300 new robots for welding or adhesive bonding applications that require such a sensor are sold every year.

For Mauritz Möller and his colleagues Malte Buhr, Vishnuu Prakash and Julian Weber, the aim of the project is to assess how SensePRO might be commercially exploited, for example in a spin-off. With this in mind, the four pioneering researchers have applied for and received approval for EXIST funding. The Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy’s EXIST program supports start-ups from universities and research institutions individually with up to one million euros in funding.

Editor’s Note: This article was republished with permission from the Fraunhofer Research Institution. The original article can be found HERE.

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