Best of First 100 Episodes

Kevin Blankespoor, VP of product engineering at Boston Dynamics, takes us inside the development of Stretch, the box-moving robot the company introduced this week. Blankespoor describes the evolution of the product design, the many system integration challenges, plans to improve the Pick vision system going forward, similarities between Atlas, Spot and Stretch, and much more.

Boston Dynamics' VP of Product Engineering on Developing Stretch

Jorgen Pedersen, president and CEO of RE2 Robotics, and Travis Schneider, business development manager of RE2 Robotics, discussed the evolution of the company, which was founded in 2001. RE2 was focused nearly 100% on defense work in 2016, but now the defense sector accounts for less than one-third of its business. We also discuss the company's new Sapien line of intelligent robotic arms and adding more autonomy to its manipulators.

The Evolution of RE2 Robotics

Ken Goldberg and Jim Liefer from Ambi Robotics join the program to discuss the company's approach to piece-picking robots and how Sim2Real AI is playing a major role.

We also break down WTWH Media's acquisition of Mobile Robot Guide and how it'll educate potential buyers about the benefits of mobile robotics systems. 

We also chat with Paul Mikesell, founder and CEO of Carbon Robotics, who takes us inside the development of the company's third-generation weeding robot.

Energy + Hard Rock + Electric Guitar

Ken Goldberg on robotic grasping; Carbon Robotics’ new weeding robot

Joel Johnson, the passenger inside the Waymo One robotaxi that was confused by construction cones, takes us inside what went wrong. He also talks about his overall experience with Waymo One, which includes 147 rides to date.

We also catch up with Tom Ryden, executive director of MassRobotics, who takes us inside the develop of the group's new mobile robot interoperability standard.

Passenger of confused Waymo robotaxi discusses what went wrong

Our guest this week is Jon Hirschtick from PTC. Jon has started (and sold) two popular product development companies in his career: SolidWorks and Onshape. We also cover the robotics news from the week, PLUS a special discussion about our favorite startups for 2021.

Timestamps

News recap: 0-18:18
Interview with PTC's Jon Hirschtick: 20:57-1:04:40
Voicemails/Favorite Robotics Startups: 1:04:43-1:36:37

Jon Hirschtick from Onshape/PTC; Favorite robotics startups of 2021

Today’s episode recaps a major week for autonomous vehicles. Cruise co-founder, CTO and president Kyle Vogt hailed the first driverless robotaxi ride in SF, Waymo started to map New York City and Nuro raised another $600M for its autonomous delivery vehicles. And we don’t even mention Aurora debuting on the Nasdaq, FedEx testing autonomous delivery in China, and Autobrains raising $101 million for its unsupervised AI for autonomous vehicles.

You'll also hear from James DeSmet, president and CEO of CRG Automation. The company built a robotic system to help decommission a stockpile of 70,000 chemical missiles at a base in Kentucky. James walks us through the challenges of the project. 

Our favorite quote from the interview: “We’re just packaging a very dangerous chemical weapon instead of a Twinkie. It’s a little different, but it’s the same.” You can check out videos of the system in action over at CRG Automation’s YouTube channel.

Decommissioning chemical missiles with robots

In this weeks episode Steve Crowe and Mike Oitzmanreview the large number of recent robotics funding announcements over the past week. Mike interviews Jan Becker and Joe Speed from APEX.AI and they discuss the importance and evolution of real-time operating systems and technology stacks for autonomous vehicles. They also discuss the Autonomous Challenge at CES event.

APEX.AI discusses autonomous vehicle OS's; Nearly $1B in funding announcements

In today's episode, Steve and Mike interview Rashed Haq, VP of Robotics for Cruise. Rashed discusses the current deployment of Cruise autonomous taxi's in San Francisco and what the company expects to learn from the experience as it gradually expanding its operating scope. Potentially passengers can now signup to be a part of the beta program and ride one of the robotaxis on the Cruise website.

Cruise's VP of robotics on SF robotaxi operations

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

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

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

Greg Smith, president of Teradyne’s Industrial Automation Group, takes us inside the company's acquisition strategy. Teradyne's industrial automation portfolio include leading companies Universal Robots, Mobile Industrial Robots, Energid and AutoGuide Mobile Robots. 

Teradyne is still looking for acquisitions, and Greg tells us what Teradyne looks for in companies. Was Teradyne interested in Boston Dynamics before it was acquired by Hyundai for nearly $1 billion?

Greg also shared that Universal Robots sold more than 9,000 cobots in 2020 alone, and he offered a unique perspective on mobile manipulation, saying the ROI is a challenge.

Teradyne's acquisition strategy & the future of cobots

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

Best of First 100 Episodes

The Robot Report Podcast