\nMotor City mechatronics<\/br>
\n2023-05-27 22:09:30<\/br><\/p>\n
A number of native<\/span> Detroiters have asked me what I think about their city so far. The simple answer is that I don\u2019t feel qualified to offer much insight yet. I\u2019ve been here for roughly three days as I write this, and I haven\u2019t seen all that much of the city. Ask me what I think about the Huntington Place convention center, on the other hand, and I can speak with great authority<\/p>\n I admit that I\u2019m still overly impressed by the fact that, when you walk through the building\u2019s rear entrance, you\u2019re suddenly face-to-face with Canada. It\u2019s something that I may well not have realized were it not for the giant red and white maple leaf flag flying on the Detroit River\u2019s north coast.<\/p>\n I briefly entertained the notion of crossing the border for dinner, for the sole purpose of telling friends that I had dinner in another country, but hailing a rideshare across the bridge wasn\u2019t as straightforward as I\u2019d been led to believe \u2014 a fact exacerbated by the fact that it was Victoria Day on Monday (which appeared to visibly impact attendance on the first day of the show).<\/p>\n One thing you\u2019ll find with Detroit is that the people who live there are fiercely loyal to their home \u2014 a common characteristic among Rust Belt cities. They cheerlead for the city to all who will listen and defend it with ferocity if you\u2019re foolhardy enough to criticize it. At the same time, however, citizens aren\u2019t blind to \u2014 nor do they ignore\u2013 decades of struggle. If you know one thing about the city beyond its professional sports teams, it\u2019s likely that its destiny has been shaped by manufacturing probably more so than any other major American city.<\/p>\n Detroit is an industry town, in the purest sense of the term. It\u2019s well positioned in the middle of the country. It has ready access to iron and timber, along with rivers and trains that provide a straight shot to ship heavy machines to and from other major American cities like New York and Chicago. Michigan native Henry Ford incorporated his company in the Detroit suburb Dearborn in 1903. His deeply problematic shadow still looms large over the city, much like Carnegie in Pittsburgh. Ask someone what you should see during your short time in town, and the Henry Ford Museum will invariably make the list. (I opted to spend my limited non-show time at the very good Detroit Institute of Arts instead. Take that, Hank!)<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Jose Francisco Arias Fernandez \/ EyeEm \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n GM acquired its way into Detroit after being founded 68 miles northwest in Flint in 1908. A year later, the company came within $2 million of adding Ford to its growing list of subsidiaries. (Add that to the list of historical hinge points for the sci-fi book you\u2019re writing.) Walter Chrysler was the last of the big three, founding his namesake corporation out of the ashes of the Maxwell Motor Company in 1925.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re aware of all that, you almost certainly know the other side of the coin: what happens when an industry town\u2019s industry leaves town. While the big three still operate out of the area, the ghost of manufacturing still haunts over the area. First came the decentralization outside of the city proper, and then broader economic troubles and resulting slowed car sales, while increased competition overseas loosened the city\/country\u2019s stranglehold on the automotive industry.<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Brian Heater<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Obviously the full story is far more complex than all of that. Politics and racial inequities played key roles as well. A city so inexorably tied to the automobile was far more motivated to embrace freeways over public transit. These sorts of decisions have a way of increasing both economic and racial disparities. Meanwhile, much of the white population skipped out of the city proper, in favor of the suburbs, which now include some of the wealthiest zip codes in the country. The gulf between the rich and the poor has a way of widening the later you get into capitalism\u2019s progression. I\u2019m reminded of this every time I head home to San Francisco, where people are forced to live out on the streets in front of some of the world\u2019s richest corporations.<\/p>\n Much like my first visits to cities like Pittsburgh and Baltimore, I had certain expectations heading to Detroit for the first time. From my extremely limited experience in both, it seems like Pittsburgh and Detroit, in particular, are on similar paths, but the former has a sizable head start.<\/p>\n One thing many who visit the city will point to are the abandoned buildings. The population decline can\u2019t be ignored. In prosperous post-war 1950, the city claimed 1.85 million residents, making it the fifth largest American city. The 2021 census, however puts the figure at 633,000. Devoid of people, these thriving organisms begin to feel like monuments.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n For years, my distant impression of the city has been flavored by stories of revitalization. For one thing, population decreases lead to rent drops, which can, in turn, birth a thriving arts scene. The word \u201crenaissance\u201d has been thrown out many times in recent decades.\u00a0 The fact of life in 2023 is that living in places like New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco can be unattainable on an artist\u2019s income. In recent decades, Detroit has offered a compelling cross section of cheap rent and rich culture \u2014 some of the greatest music in the history of the world was produced here. I took a car straight to the Motown house after I landed. There\u2019s something truly magical about a place that gave us Diana Ross, the MC5, Detroit techno, Dirtbombs, The White Stripes and Danny Brown.<\/p>\n At the end of the day, however, a thriving art scene is great at attracting young people but is unfortunately rarely an epicenter for a thriving economy. I\u2019ve also long heard whispers about the return of manufacturing to the city. Certainly Detroit has the infrastructure necessary, and the continued presence of automotive headquarters is key, especially as more companies look to decentralize and localize manufacturing due both to ongoing supply chain concerns and the very real possibility of deepened U.S.\u2013China tensions.<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Brian Heater<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI think one of the challenges that we saw exposed during COVID was supply chain issues,\u201d president of the Association for Advancing Automation (A3) and Detroit native Jeff Burnstein told me during a conversation this week. \u201cIt\u2019s not easy to do, but a lot of companies would like to bring more manufacturing back to North America. You can\u2019t just rip up your supply chain, of course. . . . But they were able to do it because of automation. One of the limiting factors [for reshoring] is that we don\u2019t have enough people who are skilled.\u201d<\/p>\n There do appear to be some good initiatives in place, and I\u2019m increasingly hearing stories from hardware startups that have been pushing to bring assembly and\/or manufacturing closer to home. True, lasting success takes time and a lot of money, along with the concerted efforts of both industry and government. I went to an event last night at Newlab\u2019s shiny new Detroit offices last night. The space and the growing number of startups point to key dollars entering the market.<\/p>\n The campus is located in a fairly remote part of the city, near the Ambassador Bridge, which carries roughly one-quarter of all U.S.\/Canada merchandise trade each year. The biggest benefit of the area is that there\u2019s plenty of room to grow and \u2014 in theory \u2014 help foster a thriving startup community. In addition to big tech companies like Google and the native StockX, smaller startups from the area are starting to get national recognition. RoboTire<\/a>, the robotic tire change firm we\u2019ve written about a few times over the years, served as a kind of poster child at this week\u2019s show. Certainly the company is a great example of leveraging Detroit\u2019s automotive expertise as the foundation of something new and bleeding edge.<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Brian Heater<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The continued presence of the automotive industry is probably the single largest reason why the Automate show is located here. Burnstein gave me a broad overview.<\/p>\n \u201cOur show had a lot of names,\u201d he explained, offering a quick history of the event. \u201cIt started as the Robotics Show in the \u201970s. Robots were going to be the next industrial revolution. The show was so big that \u2014 I think it was in 1982 \u2014 they had to close the escalator to the basement where the show was, because the fire marshal said there were too many people. There were like 30,000 people. It was almost as big as it [is] now. The show followed the fortunes of the industry, which went downhill in the mid-\u201980s.\u201d<\/p>\n Burnstein lays the blame for the implosion on General Motors\u2019 decision to cut robotics orders. As the major driver of the early industrial robot industry, the decision had a profound impact on the burgeoning category.<\/p>\n \u201cDetroit was the natural home, but then the auto industry stopped buying so much,\u201d he adds. \u201cOur show said we can\u2019t do it every year, and let\u2019s find other places to do it in. We were in Chicago for two decades.\u201d During that time, the event joined forces with the Assembly Show and later MHI\u2019s ProMat. Ultimately both ProMat and Automate grew to a point where each event evolved back into its own separate show, now two of the country\u2019s largest robotics event.<\/p>\n ProMat remains the larger of the two shows. It\u2019s also more focused on a single industry. When I first started discussing the possibility of attending both this year, ProMat<\/a> was pitched to me as a logistics show and Automate as manufacturing. ProMat started life focused on that space but has increasingly grown into an automation show as robotics have begun to have an outsized influence on the industry. There\u2019s certainly logistics at this event (Locus and Zebra\/Fetch were both present, for example \u2014 albeit in much smaller booths than at ProMat \u2014 but manufacturing (specifically automotive) still feels like its lifeblood. A Fanuc arm holding up a sports car has been the show\u2019s iconic visual for years. Fittingly, you\u2019ll also see a giant Fanuc \u201cLet\u2019s Talk About Automation\u201d ad on the side of an airport parking garage as you arrive \u2014 something I\u2019m told is not an Automate-only feature.<\/p>\n Smaller robotics startups were less of a presence at Automate, though they were there in some forms, like the Pittsburgh consortium that brought Shift Robotics\u2019 Moonwalker shoes<\/a> and drone inventory startup Gather AI. Most of my interactions with founders occurred at after-parties like the one at Newlab and an event put on by robot operating system (ROS) stewards Open Robotics and ROS users PickNik Robotics and Foxglove.<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Getty Images \/ Daryl Balfour<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I did, however, line up a couple of chats with some bigger names, including Jim Lawton, the Rethink and Universal Robotics vet who heads up robotics and automation over at Zebra Technologies. If you\u2019ve read about Zebra in this newsletter in the past, it\u2019s because of the company\u2019s 2021 acquisition of Fetch. I\u2019ve likened the deal to Amazon\u2019s acquisition of Kiva from the standpoint of a company buying an existing startup to serve as the foundation of a broader robotics play. In a certain way, it\u2019s actually closer to the Shopify\/6 River Systems deal, in the sense that Amazon suddenly left a lot of customers in the lurch after it cut off third-party clients.<\/p>\n Of course, the Shopify situation went pear-shaped as the Canadian e-commerce giant sold off 6 River amid news of far-reaching layoffs. Fetch is third place in the category behind 6 River and Locus, the latter of which is the biggest player by a wide margin. Zebra\u2019s acquisition was clearly an ecosystem play \u2014 effectively a bid to start selling robots to customers of its existing services.<\/p>\n Says Lawton:<\/p>\n As the market has matured, customers who are now looking at automation now want solutions to problems. They\u2019re not robotic tinkerers. For a while, it was \u201cThese are cool. How fast are they?\u201d Now it\u2019s \u201cHow much productivity can I get? How much increased capacity can I get? A lot of that comes from taking robots, these devices, and the ability to control other things in the warehouse, like getting robots up to the mezzanine level, meaning the robot is able to activate the elevator. If I\u2019m going to take a tote off a robot and put it onto a conveyor, I need to activate the conveyer, I need to activate the robot. We have an IoT gateway device that we use to orchestrate all of the other things. What they want is a warehouse workflow optimization tool that happens to involve robots.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n We also discussed my favorite topic of recent vintage: interoperability. Lawton again:<\/p>\n I think it\u2019s going to take longer than people think it is. The idea of seamless interoperability is not something we\u2019re going to see a lot of over the next couple of years. It\u2019s going to take some time. I know the markets are different, but there is some precedent on the manufacturing side. Robotic arms have been in manufacturing since the 1960s, and we still don\u2019t have [interoperability]. It\u2019s going to take some time. There are reasons interoperability is more important in the warehouse space. A robotic arm is integrated into a cell. These kinds of robots are a little bit different, so I think you\u2019ll see the pace get a little bit faster.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> TechCrunch<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Early this week, we were the first with the news that Fetch founder Melonee Wise had left Zebra<\/a> and joined forces with Agility, where she\u2019ll serve as CTO. The Willow Garage vet knows as much about warehouse robots as just about anyone on the planet. It\u2019s a great hire for Agility, and an interesting challenge for Wise as the company continues to explore commercial applications with Digit.<\/p>\n Wise and I discuss the move and a bunch more:<\/p>\n Let\u2019s start with Agility.<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019m so excited.<\/p>\n I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve known them for a long time.<\/strong><\/p>\n There was \u2014 let\u2019s call it a seminal moment \u2014 where [CEO Damion Shelton] and I were at a conference and we ended up on a panel together talking about why robot technology has such a hard time getting out of the university. What is it about robotics technology and crossing the chasm from a cool science project to a full production company that\u2019s shipping robots?<\/p>\n You had already had success with that. It\u2019s scalability, repeatability.<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s also about what to focus on, when. There\u2019s a lot of perfecting the imperfect that happens where we\u2019re hyperfocused on minutia from a technology perspective that the customer doesn\u2019t care about. If you look at logistics, primarily what the customers care about \u2014 if they could just wave a magic wand and get it \u2014 they want a teleporter.<\/p>\n To get a product from one place to another.<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah. We, as roboticists, are building all these robots to achieve basically that ask. Because they want a teleporter, the customer has a hard time articulating what the need is. We as roboticists \u2014 because we don\u2019t get great specifications \u2014 we have the tendency to try to really rathole on the things that we know.<\/p>\n You over-engineer.<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah. Instead of just throwing it out into the world, letting it fail and then building the thing that customers want.<\/p>\n There\u2019s an extent to which you can fail when starting a company. If Digits went out there, started falling over and lighting on fire, that would be a problem.<\/strong><\/p>\n Absolutely. But I think there\u2019s a thing that happens in early-stage startups that decides if they\u2019re going to be successful or not. I believe the success point is when you\u2019re at your first customer and it\u2019s not going perfectly.<\/p>\n When you\u2019re still small.<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah. It\u2019s that customer that really shapes and helps you define your product \u2014 or a set of customers. It\u2019s not going to go well there. No matter how you like to spin it, it doesn\u2019t go well \u2014 unless you\u2019re in software and you really have the ability to change things quickly. With robotics hardware, you\u2019re kind of stuck with the thing that you made, and a lot of what you\u2019re doing when you get into your first customer is trying to tweak it or trying to put candy wrapping around it. And then you make a small iteration in software or hardware, and you get closer and closer to what everyone wants to buy. But it\u2019s from that failure that you get a directed purpose for success.<\/p>\n Fetch had that time as a smaller company. Agility\u2019s product is so visually interesting, and it got so much press, that suddenly Ford is interested. That\u2019s a lot of pressure at an early stage.<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, it is. I think that we\u2019re trying as a company as part of scaling to choose customers that we have an opportunity for codevelopment with. It\u2019s not to say that we\u2019re not focusing on the other big customers that are with us; it\u2019s just that we\u2019re diversifying our strategy to make sure that we have these opportunities to learn in a non\u2013high publicity environment.<\/p>\n Also, you find a warehouse so it can be applied to other warehouses. The Ford learnings can be applied to other things.<\/strong><\/p>\n One of the things that we have been trying to get to is the solution. Fetch struggled with that for a very long time. We started by selling a robot product into the market. But we eventually became a solution.<\/p>\n It makes sense. You started as roboticists, not warehouse experts.<\/strong><\/p>\n I think that all robotics companies go through that originally. It just matters what end of the spectrum you\u2019re coming from. If you look at the story of Locus, they were product-first people, robotics second.<\/p>\n They were a logistics company that felt like they had to make robots.<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah. Their solution came to market a lot more mature, but their robotics hardware came to market less mature. It depends on where you are on the spectrum. Agility, like many robotics companies, comes from a very tech-heavy perspective. There\u2019s still learning about what we have to do, which I\u2019m excited about. That\u2019s why I\u2019m there. I think that we are quickly narrowing in on what the end cases are.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a big, ongoing debate around the necessity of legs.<\/strong><\/p>\n Wheeled robots struggle with a lot of scenarios. I would say the other better case to talk about with wheeled robots is every time you want to do a task like Digit does, you need a specialized accessory to do it.<\/p>\n In terms of an arm to lift it up?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah. Or in the case of a mobile robot, you wouldn\u2019t solve that with arms. You would most likely make a lifting conveyer piece. The robot would have a little conveyer, it would have a way of grabbing the tote, like a sliding arm, and then shuffle it onto the robot. Then the robot would kick it out onto the conveyer. The problem is that it\u2019s a whole other special accessory that you have to build. At Fetch we had mobile platforms, but most of our business eventually became making specialized accessories for the different vertical applications we cared about. The Digit promise is that we are able to attack more vertical use cases with less hardware modification. We have a much more \u2014 let\u2019s not say general purpose \u2014 but multipurpose [way]. It\u2019s a lot easier to envision a single piece of hardware being used for multiple purposes and a facility for these types of activities.<\/p>\n There are certain things that wheeled robots just can\u2019t do. We have a hard time in general with going over bumps or ramps, largely because it causes problems with safety and localization mapping. One of the more hilarious things about going up a ramp with a mobile robot is as you approach the ramp, it looks more and more like a wall.<\/p>\n Wile E. Coyote syndrome.<\/strong><\/p>\n There\u2019s some nuance there. That is not to say that mobile robots aren\u2019t a good solution for a lot of use cases. It\u2019s just that when you\u2019re starting to look at this vision of end to end automation with these different agents, there\u2019s a class of things that certain agents are good at. And there\u2019s a class of things that other agents are.<\/p>\n Is it too difficult \u2014 or impossible \u2014 to put the arm solution on an AMR?<\/strong><\/p>\n As someone who\u2019s built AMRs with arms \u2014 Fetch had a research project that had an arm; we sold about 100 of them over five or six years to research institutes \u2014 I think it\u2019s hard to do bi-manual manipulation on a mobile manipulator because of the hardware constraints like putting [on] two robot arms, like Kuka is.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a difference between a Kuka arm and the simpler arms on Digit.<\/strong><\/p>\n I would say that still \u2014 even to implement the framework that Digit has on a mobile platform, there are some limitations that you would run into. There are some advantages to having a base with legs. One of the things you can\u2019t do with mobile platforms is you can\u2019t get below the top of the platform. Digit has a lot of capability in terms of crouching and also reaching that are challenges with mobile platforms from a stability perspective, from a footprint and space perspective.<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Agility Robotics<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Is the [Digit] arm diverse enough now to continue to diversify the tasks it can perform?<\/strong><\/p>\n We\u2019re doing some tweaks to the arm, so you\u2019ll see a bit more complexity come into the arm to deal with some of the challenges with the payload moving inside the tote.<\/p>\n In terms of throwing the robot off-balance?<\/strong><\/p>\n In terms of being able to keep the tote level and things like that. I think we are on a path that makes sense for the right level of complexity to solve the right level of complexity problem. I don\u2019t think we as Agility have ever said we\u2019re making complex, dexterous mobile manipulators with five-finger hands. I\u2019m not convinced that\u2019s the right way to approach the problem in general.<\/p>\n What does the path look like for Agility, going forward? Does everything continue to revolve around Digit?<\/strong><\/p>\n Let me preface this by saying I\u2019ve been with Agility for five whole days. I would say that I think there\u2019s going to be a large focus on Digit for the foreseeable future, I think that we are going to have to expand our automation story. Fetch did the same thing. We started with a robot, and then we had a robot that interacted with conveyers and these types of devices. Digit\u2019s equivalent is we have to interact with conveyers and put walls.<\/p>\n What\u2019s the solution for Digit? Accessories or a pure software play?<\/strong><\/p>\n There will be accessories; there will be a software platform that allows us to connect. We\u2019re going to be expanding our fleet management platform and things like that. And also expanding to connect to standard automation tools and partnering to connect with companies that are well known in the automation industry.<\/p>\n Is there a lot of overengineering happening on the humanoid side of the robotics world?<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to say, because it\u2019s hard to say what the use case is. It would depend on what you\u2019re trying. Take robotic picking? How many picking cells have you seen that have five-fingered hands?<\/p>\n They\u2019re all suction cups now.<\/strong><\/p>\n Suction cups and soft gripping clients. We first need to ask ourselves what is the use case? If you look at the manufacturing and logistics domains, there\u2019s enough prior art that shows five-fingered hands are not necessary.<\/p>\n The hand is just one example, but it does get to the broader point about potentially overengineering.<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019m hesitant to say \u201coverengineering.\u201d I would say it\u2019s just poorly targeted product design.<\/p>\n We talked a bit about your decision to join Agility, but why was this the right time to leave Zebra?<\/strong><\/p>\n To be more clear, I went from being the CEO to a CTO for the Robotics Business unit. We transitioned into Zebra. It was a big change for me, but although the work was interesting, it was not as fulfilling as I wanted it to be for me, personally. After about 18 months of being at Zebra, I decided it was the right time for me to leave. I decided to take some time off. Running a company for seven years \u2014 and having a plethora of different life events that happened during that period \u2014 I needed a break. I decided to take six months off. I think it was a good thing for me, personally. We don\u2019t talk enough about founder health and things like that.<\/p>\n Being a CTO is obviously still a hard job, but it almost sounds like a relief to be able to just focus on the tech stuff.<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019m not gonna lie. Moving to Agility is going to be \u2014 it\u2019s weird to say this \u2014 relaxing to not have some of the burden of being CEO. I\u2019m really excited about that.<\/p>\n You were doing a lot of things you didn\u2019t study for.<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, and also there\u2019s a lot of weird pressure that falls on you as a CEO. For me, some of those pressures were a little bit more extreme, being a woman. And fundraising is not my favorite activity. I, personally, will find it very relaxing to be the CTO of Agility, because I won\u2019t be the CEO. I think Damion is a great CEO and I think he\u2019s doing work that is thankless.<\/p>\n How are you and [former CTO turned chief robotics officer] Jonathan Hurst going to work together?<\/strong><\/p>\n The way that I see it is Jonathan is very focused on building the innovation pipeline for the robotics hardware. He created Cassie, he created all of the iterations before that. He is going to be building the future technology that Digit will one day rely on. My focus is going to be more product centric.<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Apptronik (opens in a new window)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n On the humanoid robot front (where we seem to spend a lot of our time these days), I sat down with Apptronik CEO Jeff Cardenas<\/a> in the otherwise empty Huntington Place cafeteria to discuss the Austin company\u2019s plans to unveil exactly that this summer. The company didn\u2019t have a who presence on the floor, but Cardenas had a slideshow on his MacBook that he was sharing with a select few, including myself. It started with the company\u2019s varied history.<\/p>\n \u201c[The] exoskeleton was liquid cooled,\u201d he told me. \u201cWe learned a lot doing that. The complexity of the system was too high. It was heavy. We remotized all of the actuators. And then we started to realize what was the simplest version of a humanoid robot: a mobile manipulator. We started getting approached by a lot folks in logistics, who didn\u2019t want to pay for manufacturing arms. They were too precise for what they need. What they wanted was an affordable robotic logistics arm.\u201d<\/p>\n I can\u2019t share images of the system with you at this point, but I can describe what I saw. Quoting myself:<\/p>\n Cardenas shows me images \u2014 both renders and photos \u2014 of Apollo, the system it plans to debut this summer. I can\u2019t share them here, but I can tell you that the design bucks the kind of convergent evolution I\u2019ve described, which found Tesla, Figure and OpenAI-backed 1X showing renders with a shared designed language. Apollo looks \u2014 in a word \u2014 friendlier than any of these systems and the NASA Valkyrie robot that came before it.<\/p>\n It shares a lot more design qualities with Astra. In fact, I might even go so far as describing it as a cartoony aesthetic, with a head shaped like an old-school iMac, and a combination of button eyes and display that comprise the face. While it\u2019s true that most people won\u2019t interact with these systems, which are designed to operate in places like warehouses and factory floors, it\u2019s not necessary to embrace ominousness for the sake of looking cool.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Figure<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Apptronik will be exploring a Series A this year, once the robot is revealed and \u2014 hopefully \u2014 drives investor interest. Meanwhile, one of the company\u2019s chief competitors, Figure, just announced its own $70 million Series A<\/a>, shortly after its own humanoid robot took its first steps days before the company\u2019s first anniversary.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re focused on investing in companies that are pioneers in AI technology, and we believe that autonomous humanoid robots have the potential to revolutionize the labor economy,\u201d investor Parkway Venture Capital\u2019s Jesse Coors-Blankenship said in a prepared statement. \u201cWe are impressed by the rapid progress that Brett and the team of industry experts at Figure have made in the last year and are thrilled to be a financial partner to provide resources to accelerate the commercialization of Figure 01.\u201d<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Brian Heater<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I\u2019m finishing up this week\u2019s Actuator from Gate A17 at the Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport in Romulus, MI (track nine from Sufjan Stevens\u2019 seminal 2003 album, Michigan<\/em>). I capped off my first Automate with dinner at Huntington Place\u2019s Grand Riverview Ballroom for the bi-annual Joseph F. Engelberger Robotics Award (though it seems the show will soon be going yearly, along with Automate itself<\/a>).<\/p>\n The award\u2019s namesake, Joseph F. Engelberger, is credited with co-developing Unimate, the first industrial robot, alongside George Devol in the 50s. The arm would eventually be installed in a General Motors assembly line, making it an innovation decades ahead of its time. The award is regarded as one of the industry\u2019s most prestigious (A3 likes to call it the \u201cNobel Prize of Robotics\u201d).<\/p>\n Jeff Burnstein fittingly received one of the awards, alongside longtime Universal Robotics employee, <\/p>\n To hear her tell it, Nelson Shea\u2019s journey was also unexpected. UR\u2019s <\/p>\n \u201cThis award is a testament to the great contribution Roberta has made to the robotics industry,\u201d says UR President Kim Povlsen. \u201cHer dedication to safety has helped create the standards for the interaction between people and robots. This has been an important contribution to the collaborative relationship we see today between humans and robots across hundreds of thousands of workplaces.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n And Nelson Shea in her own words, \u201cThe Engelberger Robotics Award for Application in Safety is a tremendous honor to me and to all those who have embraced and contributed to robotic safety. I remember meeting Joe Engelberger over 40 years ago and never imagined receiving this award. I view the award to be honoring the industry\u2019s progress in optimizing safety and productivity. The journey has been amazing!\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Image Credits: Bryce Durbin \/ TechCrunch<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Rev up your engines and subscribe<\/a> to Actuator.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n <\/br><\/br><\/br><\/p>\n![\"High](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/GettyImages-661836403.jpeg?resize=1024%2C684&ssl=1\")
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Q&A with Melonee Wise<\/h2>\n
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