Season 1 of The Robot Report Podcast

Best of First 100 Episodes

100 Shows

This week, hosts Steve and Mike discuss the recent Cascadia connect event in Pittsburgh, where the announcement was made launching the the new US Alliance of Robotics Clusters. Mike had the opportunity to talk to Silicon Valley Robotics director Andra Keay and Pittsburgh Robotics Network director Joel Reed about the goals of the new organization.
Mike also visiting Pittsburgh robotics company Agility Robotics and had the opportunity to catch up with co-founder and CEO Damion Shelton,

Agility Robotics gets a boost from Amazon; The US Alliance of Robotics Clusters is born

Our guest this week is Brian Gerkey, CEO and co-founder of Open Robotics and one of creators of ROS. Brian tells us about the development and evolution of the Robot Operating System (ROS) and why open source software has played such a pivotal role in the growth of the robotics industry and in the acceleration of robotics research in university and corporate robotic labs around the world.

Brian Gerkey from Open Robotics discusses the development of ROS

Mike Dooley, co-founder and CEO of robotics startup Labrador Systems, joins the podcast. We discuss how Labrador built autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) for home environments to help the elderly and those with mobility issues. Mike also discusses how his days at Evolution Robotics and iRobot helped shape some of the decisions being made at Labrador Systems.

Steve Crowe and Mike Oitzman also dive into the recent layoffs and shutdowns that have impacted numerous robotics companies.

Inside the development of Labrador Systems' assistive robots

Nima Fazeli, assistant professor of robotics at the University of Michigan and director of the Manipulation and Machine Intelligence Lab, joins the program to discuss the flaws of the chess-playing robot that broke a 7-year-old's finger during a tournament in Russia. Fazeli helped develop a Jenga-playing robot while at MIT.

Mike and Steve also hit on the top stories of the week, including researchers using dead wolf spiders as mechanical grippers and another strong quarter for Teradyne's robotics group.

Show Notes
https://www.mmintlab.com/
https://www.therobotreport.com/mit-robot-uses-vision-touch-learn-jenga/
https://www.therobotreport.com/why-im-saying-no-to-necrobotics/
https://www.therobotreport.com/teradynes-robotics-group-101m-q2-2022/
https://www.therobotreport.com/locus-robotics-completes-soc-2-certification/
https://www.robobusiness.com/
https://www.fieldroboticsforum.com/

Jenga robot creator reviews chess-playing robot flaws

In this episode, we talk to Eliot Horowitz, founder and CEO of Viam Inc. Viam launched the open beta of its new robotics platform. Viam provides an open-source robot architecture that turns complex functionality into simple APIs, with an integrated cloud service to orchestrate production deployments.
Co-hosts Steve Crowe and Mike Oitzman also discuss news of the week, includes the end of delivery robot testing with Amazon and Fedex.

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

In this episode, we discuss the news of the shutdown of Argo AI and the state of autonomous driving, including the upcoming IAC race event. Mike interviews Covariant.AI CEO, Peter Chen, and they discuss the new CovariantOne RaaS solution, that's based on performance SLAs for the Covariant warehouse solution.

Argo AI shuts down; Covariant CEO discusses new RaaS performance

Samantha Johnson, founder and CEO of Boston-based startup Tatum Robotics, describes the company's anthropomorphic robotic system designed to sign tactile sign languages for people with deafblindness - they can't hear or see. Johnson dives into the challenging system design and the opportunities for such technology. Samantha also discusses her passion for helping the deafblind community, educating us about some of the daily challenges of those living with deafblindness.

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

In this episode, cohosts Steve Crowe and Mike Oitzman talk to the co-founders of the Robotics Operations Group, affectionately known as "ROG" about the recent inaugural RobOpsCon.
The mission of ROG is to develop and share best practices for the operation at scale of autonomous robots.
Guests Florian Pestoni and Joe Wieciek talk to Mike about the growth of the group and the planning for the recent conference.
For more information check out: robops.org
We also talk about the news from the week, including a recent patent fight between "Robo dog" vendors Ghost Robotics and Boston Dynamics.

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

To celebrate our 100th episode, we look back at our favorite guests and moments. We also look ahead at what's next for the show.

Nic Radford, founder and CEO of Nauticus Robotics, joins the show to discuss his team's development of underwater robots. Leveraging experience developing space robots for NASA, Nauticus' underwater robots can perform inspection and maintenance tasks and much more.

Nic Radford on developing underwater robots; Celebrating 100 episodes

We break down why Softbank is reportedly looking to sell Boston Dynamics to Hyundai for upwards of $1B. Hyundai would be the third owner of Boston Dynamics in the last 7 years. What's the reason for the sale: slow commercialization from Boston Dynamics, soured investments from Softbank or both? We discuss.

We're also joined by Aaron Prather, FedEx's senior advisor of technology, research and planning, to discuss FedEx's growing use of robotics, his work on mobile robot interoperability, advice for startups, and his thoughts on Boston Dynamics and more.

Why Softbank is shopping Boston Dynamics; FedEx's Aaron Prather

We talk to Dextrous Robotics CEO and co-founder Evan Drumwright about its approach to automating the unloading of box trucks. This might be the next big problem for robotics companies to solve, and Dextrous is taking a unique approach. 

We also discuss the remake of Short Circuit and share our all-time favorite robotics movies. Other discussions include recent robotics investments, Motional's Level 4 autonomous vehicles coming to Nevada and a new study analyzes the ongoing robots vs. jobs debate.

Dextrous Robotics exits stealth; how robots impact the future of work

Jud Kauffman and Joe Wolfel, co-founders of Austin, Texas-based startup Terradepth, are building autonomous submarines for deep ocean exploration. Its long-term goal is to build the Google Earth of the ocean. They discuss the challenges and opportunities of Terradepth's mission and how their Naval experience is playing a vital role.

We also chat with Nader Elm, CEO and co-founder of Exyn Technologies. Exyn is a spin-off of the GRASP Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania that builds autonomous drones that are operating in GPS-denied environments such as mines.

Autonomous submarines for ocean exploration; drone autonomy with Exyn Technologies

Aurora's acquisition of Uber's self-driving unit takes center stage on episode 27. We break down the acquisition and try to figure out why Aurora would have purchased Uber's troubled self-driving unit.

We also catch up with Joel Reed, the interim executive director of the Pittsburgh Robotics Network. Joel updates us on the status of the cluster, tells us about some interesting companies to watch, his daily sightings of autonomous vehicles, and how the cluster has handled the COVID-19 pandemic.

Why did Aurora buy Uber ATG?; Robotics thriving in Pittsburgh

What robotics company had a better 2020 than Boston Dynamics. Michael Patrick Perry, Boston Dynamics' VP of business development, joins the podcast discuss the company's massive year and, of course, being acquired by Hyundai Motor Group for $880 million.

We also catch up with Dr. Timothy Chung, program manager for the DARPA Subterranean Challenge. Tim takes us inside the recently completed Cave Circuit Virtual Competition and shares some of the lessons that were learned.

Boston Dynamics talks about its big year, Hyundai acquisition

Join Steve Crowe and Mike Oitzman each week for discussions with leading roboticists, innovative robotics companies, and other key members of the robotics community.