\nLet\u2019s work together<\/br>
\n2023-04-20 21:45:03<\/br><\/p>\n
There are about<\/span> four duck boats lined up directly across the street from this coffee shop. Boston has a knack for reminding you where you are, should you get bonked on the head and suddenly forget what city you\u2019re in. This is a far more truncated visit than the last time. Most likely as you\u2019re reading this, TechCrunch Early Stage Boston will be well underway.<\/p>\n I carved out a bit of time on either side of the event to meet some of the folks I didn\u2019t get to see last time. I\u2019ve got a few universities, research institutes and startups on the list. I\u2019ll jump at pretty much any excuse to get back to Boston and Pittsburgh these days (let me know if there\u2019s a good one for the latter in the next few months).<\/p>\n Oh, and I\u2019ve recently decided to swing by Detroit at the end of next month, so if there\u2019s anything I definitely need to check out, let me know (accepting that our definitions of \u201cdefinitely\u201d may vary a good deal).<\/p>\n Heading over to MassRobotics<\/a> shortly, after a recent Zoom call with Tom Ryden, the org\u2019s executive director. I\u2019d been wanting to talk interoperability since my recent trip to ProMat<\/a>. It\u2019s something I\u2019ve regrettably not yet managed to highlight in any sort of meaningful way in Actuator, so we\u2019ll be making up for that today.<\/p>\n As discussed the other week, along with autonomous mobile manipulation, cross-platform interoperability is a major holy grail for the industry. As companies increasingly push toward fully autonomous warehouses, the realization is no doubt quickly dawning that the goal can\u2019t be achieved by relying on a single company.<\/p>\n Will the day come when robotics firms will offer true top-to-bottom solutions? Maybe? Getting there would take a long time and a hell of a lot of money \u2014 be it through in-house R&D or acquisition (likely both). From what I\u2019ve seen, most ARM firms in the space are largely focusing on their current addressable market (which is admittedly massive), rather than rushing into additional segments of the market. Amazon\u2019s certainly pushing for it, but economic belt-tightening aside, a fat lot of good that\u2019s going to do all of the non-Amazon companies out there.<\/p>\n For the foreseeable future, increased automation means working with more robots from more companies. That presents the very real problem of interoperability. Put in the plainest language, you don\u2019t want to suddenly find yourself tasked with running a warehouse of robots that don\u2019t know how to work together.<\/p>\n There are a lot of companies working on fleet management software, which we\u2019ve talked about in the past and will, no doubt, talk about again soon. This week, however, I\u2019m interested in something I\u2019ve written about a lot with my consumer electronics hat, but very seldomly with the robotics one (it\u2019s shaped like R2-D2. Got it on discount after Halloween). So we\u2019re going to be kicking things off with the Q&A, then some more VC survey results, job listings and then back to your regularly planned roundup.<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Hi, this is a meme.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n TC: Why did MassRobotics take this problem on?<\/strong><\/p>\n TR: We took this on a couple of years ago, when we were talking to a lot of the manufacturers and customers of AMRs. It was clear that there isn\u2019t going to be one solution. There isn\u2019t going to be one AMR that does everything. We were starting to see things like AMRs and robotic floor cleaners get out there and we heard from major customers saying, \u201cThis is a problem. We have all of these platforms. We have to somehow manage them all in a better way. They\u2019re all independent and they don\u2019t speak to each other.\u201d<\/p>\n So we looked around and didn\u2019t see anything. [We asked if] we could help and create a very low lift, very simple standard. It\u2019s really a data exchange standard. Here\u2019s a common way to broadcast information from each AMR and then we can have other companies develop software packages that display all of the different platforms and give you statistics on the systems and how they\u2019re performing.<\/p>\n We released that about a year and a half ago. It\u2019s a pretty simple standard. We\u2019re working now on the next vision. That will add complexity. What we didn\u2019t do in the first one is task management or \u201ctasking.\u201d There was no ability for third-party software to go in and control any of the robots. Part of that is because none of the AMR vendors wanted that. They all have their own traffic management systems. They all believe their traffic management systems do the best for their systems and are optimized for their systems. I don\u2019t disagree. Now we\u2019re trying to work on a way that there will be some ability to manage different platforms without interfering with their set directions.<\/p>\n You\u2019re creating both the standard and the software?<\/strong><\/p>\n No. We are trying to provide software only as example. Sometimes it\u2019s helpful to get example code for how you would implement this. Our standard is more guidelines. If you adopt the standard, you can interoperate with other systems that are operating in the same area that you are.<\/p>\n What does it mean for them to communicate? I assume it\u2019s not robot to robot?<\/strong><\/p>\n They\u2019re not doing it robot to robot. They\u2019re just sending a broadcast for anybody who wants to read it. We have a standard communications protocol, so anybody that has the ability to gather that data can.<\/p>\n So I\u2019m running a warehouse and now have something that allows them all to appear on the same map.<\/strong><\/p>\n Correct. And you can see how all of the different vendors are operating on one system. The people who are developing the third-party software are getting a lot of different information about the robot. They can show how things are performing in your warehouse and gather different things that are helpful for the warehouse operator to understand.<\/p>\n Returning to the recent robotics VC survey<\/a>, here\u2019s this week\u2019s question:<\/p>\n TC: How is robotics investing different than in previous years? What role have the pandemic, slowing economy and recent bank crisis had on your investments?<\/strong><\/p>\n Kelly Chen, DCVC: <\/strong>The last few years have been a series of changing concerns as well as opportunities. After the major hardware supply chain issues, startups are learning to eliminate single points of weaknesses (i.e., bottlenecks to shipping products). This comes with sacrifices to the design and cost in the near term, but it will prepare robotics startups for strong and robust scaling in the long-term.<\/p>\n A slowing economy usually means corporate customers are less willing to make large capital investments to solve their short- to medium-term labor problems, but robotics startups are increasing pushing for a recurring pricing model (robotics as a service) or a price per pick model, allowing customers to pay with a smaller lump sum and OPEX over time.<\/p>\n As for the bank crisis, robotics startups often secure venture and equipment debt, so we are happy to see new banks step up to provide these types of services to the startup community.<\/p>\n Rohit Sharma, True Ventures:<\/strong> I think the exuberance of 2021 and 2022 has given way to more rational exchanges between investors and founders. There is a renewed focus on the customer instead of growth or pure-technology, and there is an element of excitement about how fast-developing techniques in the machine learning and AI domain might play a role in delivering more effective robots. On the customer interaction front, there is a bit more of a focus on what value it delivers to them, and how quickly is that value going to make a difference in the customer\u2019s operations.<\/p>\n Kira Noodleman, Bee Partners:<\/strong> COVID-19 has urgently shown us a glimpse of a more roboticized, automated, resilient future of work that extends across the supply chain and beyond the mission critical. While this trend started in manufacturing, it has now moved well beyond into areas like healthcare, R&D, agriculture, waste management and many more.<\/p>\n Our current volatile economy has made investors demand asset-lighter, often software-powered hardware solutions that bear less risk given the increased nimbleness of said solutions. What feels new today in automation is how quickly and flexibly you can set up a system to work. And there is an increasing industry acceptance that if it is too expensive to automate, it might as well be not possible (because everything technically can be automated). Globally, shifts in recent years have added pressure to the U.S. to step up its game.<\/p>\n The average robot per 10,000 workers globally is 141 (source:\u00a0IFR<\/a>). In the U.S., we\u2019re at 244 (above average), but there are six countries ahead of us: China just passed us (350), and the No. 1 is Korea (1,000!) \u2014 clearly they are a manufacturing juggernaut. Yet, the U.S. has the largest GDP in the world, and this feels unacceptable.<\/p>\n More next week!<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Noah Medical<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Here\u2019s an extremely healthy round for Noah Medical. The Bay Area\u2013based firm this week announced a $150 Series B<\/a> led by Prosperity7 Ventures \u00a0and featuring Tiger Global, along with Hillhouse, Sequoia China, ShangBay Capital, UpHonest Capital, Sunmed Capital, Lyfe Capital, 1955 Capital and AME Cloud. It probably won\u2019t shock you to hear that it was an oversubscribed round.<\/p>\n But robots are expensive, and medical robots are very expensive. Noah\u2019s flagship product is the Galaxy System, which is used to more accurate pinpoint nodules for lung biopsies.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are a mission driven startup and appreciate our investors\u2019 support to allow us to scale and deliver on the future of medical robotics,\u201d founder and CEO Jian Zhang said in a release. \u201cNext generation robotics platforms like the Galaxy System are filling procedural gaps to provide superior clinical values to better serve customers\u2019 needs. We are excited to welcome these investors to the team and are eager to grow and serve even more patients and clinicians.\u201d<\/p>\n The funding was, no doubt, helped along by the fact that the system received FDA clearance last month. It has also begun human trials at Sydney, Australia\u2019s Macquarie University Hospital.<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> CMU<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Search and rescue is a big applications for autonomous robotic systems. Legged robots are becoming increasingly more sophisticated and better at navigating uneven terrain, but there are still a number of scenarios that present issues. A team at CMU is tackling one<\/a>, taking on these systems\u2019 ability to balance on narrow spaces.<\/p>\n In the lab, that means teaching a dog robot how to walk a balance beam. The solution? Mounting a big flywheel to the dog\u2019s back.<\/p>\n Says CMU:<\/p>\n Manchester said it was easy to modify an existing control framework to account for the RWAs because the hardware doesn\u2019t change the robot\u2019s mass distribution, nor does it have the joint limitations of a tail or spine. Without needing to account for such constraints, the hardware can be modeled like a gyrostat (an idealized model of a spacecraft) and integrated into a standard model-predictive control algorithm.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n And finally, some job listings. Here\u2019s a form<\/a> to get into next week\u2019s Actuator.<\/p>\n Robotics jobs for human people:<\/p>\n Bear Robotics<\/a> (57 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Brain Corp.<\/a> (12 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Formic<\/a> (12 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Kewazo<\/a>\u00a0(8 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Vecna Robotics<\/a> (3 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Image Credits: Bryce Durbin \/ TechCrunch<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Screenshot-2023-04-19-at-3.16.23-PM.png?resize=966%2C692&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\nQ&A with Tom Ryden<\/h2>\n
VC Survey<\/h2>\n
News<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Noah_Website_Series_B_PR_1200x600pxl_V2-1.jpg?resize=1140%2C570&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/RobotBeamWalking.webp?resize=1024%2C859&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\n\n
Jobs<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/actuator-blue.webp?resize=1024%2C576&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\n