The Robot Report Podcast

In this episode, we talk to Relay Robotics CEO Michael O'Donnell and CTO Steve Cousins about the features of the newly launched Relay2 delivery robot. O'Donnell discusses how the hotel foodservice market has changed during the pandemic and why third-party food delivery apps like Doordash have upended the room service market for hotels. The result is a renewed opportunity for a larger payload Relay robot to become an important addition to a hotel's service offerings for travelers. Cousins discusses the evolution of the elevator interface integration and the removal of the mechanical elevator-pushing interface that was a key part of the Relay1 robot.

This week we have the pleasure of interviewing Roberta Nelson Shea who was the 2023 Joseph F Engelberger Robotics Application Award winner. Roberta tells us some great stories from her career leading the development of worldwide robotics safety standards.

In this episode, we talk to Figure CEO and cofounder Brett Adcock about his vision for building general-purpose humanoid robots. The company recently closed its series A for $70M and is a year into the design and development of its first humanoid robot. This episode is sponsored by Cloud Ground Control.

In this episode, we go into detail about cloud-based control of remote fleets of outdoor robotics with an interview with Xavier Orr, CEO, of Advanced Navigation along with one of its customers: Michael Arens, co-founder and CEO of Clean Earth Rovers. Advanced Navigation has a portfolio of guidance sensors, a plug-and-play cellular modem, and the new Cloud Ground Control software.

This week, we recap the 2023 Robotics Summit event that took place last week in Boston. On the show, Mike Oitzman interviews Fox Robotics' new CEO Marin Tchakarov during a recent visit to Austin TX, and Mike also interviews Canvas Robotics' CEO and co-founder Kevin Albert about the innovation of using robots to help to finish dry wall at construction sites. This episode is sponsored by Cloud Ground Control, learn more at: https://www.cloudgroundcontrol.com/

Our guest this week is Christine Boles, Vice President in the Network & Edge Group (NEX) and General Manager of Intel’s Federal and Industrial Solutions. Robotics at Intel falls under Federal and Industrial Solutions, so Christine plays a pivotal role in developing Intel’s solutions roadmap for robotics developers. We talk to her about the key technologies available today from Intel, including software, hardware and sensors essential for robotics development. We’ll also learn what new technologies will be coming out from Intel in the near future.

In this episode, co-hosts Steve Crowe and Mike Oitzman review some of their favorite 2023 RBR50 Innovation Award honorees, discussing innovation trends in robotics and what stands out as the state of the art in robotics development across the entire industry, from space robotics to your local grocery aisle.

In this episode, we review John Deere AgTech presented at the 2023 John Deere Technology Summit, and interview Jorge Heraud, VP of Autonomy at John Deere. Later in the episode we discuss the sensor and perception stack being developed to operate the Zoox autonomous vehicle with two of Zoox's technology leaders: RJ He and Ryan McMichael. If you love autonomous vehicles, this episode looks at the current state of AV technology in two of the key use cases.

This week, Steve and Mike recap all of the robotics-related technology on display at the 2023 ProMat tradeshow. Steve went to the show and shares his discoveries and some of the conversations with industry leaders. Mike reviews news from the NVIDIA GTC keynote and robotics-related news from NVIDIA.

In the news today, we talk about the breaking story about the impact of Silicon Valley Bank being closed and put into receivership by the FDIC and the impact that this is likely to have on technology startups and the VCs that support their growth. This rapidly evolving situation is likely to have repercussions for the tech industry the remainder of the year. Unrelated to the SVB story, we also interview Rylan Hamilton, co-founder and CEO of 6 River Systems about his start in robotics with Kiva Systems and how he started and built 6 River Systems into a leading AMR manufacturer that's now a major part of the Shopify family.

Steve Crowe and Mike Oitzman discuss the uncloaking of Figure.AI, a new humanoid robot. They also discuss the latest with ChatGPT and what the latest release brings for roboticists. Our guest on the show today is Dejan Pangercic, co-founder and CTO of APEX.ai, an autonomous vehicle software company that has built a hardned OS around ROS 2. Dejan takes us through the features of the software and why it is an important solution for developers of autonomous vehicles today.

This week, co-hosts Steve Crowe and Mike Oitzman talk to industry veteran Ted Larson, the co-founder and CEO of OLogic. Ted, and OLogic have helped many robotic entrepreneurs through the design & development process of complex systems. Ted shares some of his favorite stories and valuable tips related to the complexities of developing successful robotic solutions.

This week cohosts Steve Crowe and Mike Oitzman explore the various robotic and automation solutions that were on display at the 2023 World Ag Expo in Tulare, CA. The episode features interviews with representatives from Monarch Tractor, Agtonomy, Carbon Robotics and Farmwise. Mike also discusses new solutions from Tevel Aerobotics, Farm-NG, Amos Power, Nexus Robotics, Bluewhite, Beewise, and Guardian Agriculture.

Cohosts Steve Crowe and Mike Oitzman review the news of the week, including a wayward Marty robot "out for a fresh air break". Joining us on the show this week is Aaron Prather, who is one of the robotics industries best known influencers. Aaron is a frequent speaker and discusses his new role at ASTM and reflects on his prior experience evaluating new robotics and automation for logistics and warehouse workflows in his previous role at FedEx. If you work for a young robotics startup, this is a great conversation to learn how to prepare for and deliver on the needs of your early clients.

This week, co-hosts Steve Crowe and Mike Oitzman review the latest Boston Dynamics Atlas video and how Atlas is getting more agile through simulation. Mike Oitzman reviews his recent trip to CES 2023, and features interviews with Aeolus Robotics Head of Product, Dan Haddick. Next we talk to Robosen Chief Marketing Officer Tony Crisp about the capabilities of Optimus Prime toy robot, and what's next on their roadmap. Finally, Mike recaps the recent IAC @ CES autonomous car race and interviews IAC founder Paul Mitchell.

Steve Crowe and Mike Oitzman recap the top moments and biggest stories that happened in the robotics industry during 2022. Thanks again to all our listeners and guests for another great year!

This week we discuss the issue of police officers using robots with lethal force in emergency situations. After an initial 8-3 vote approving such a measure, San Francisco's board of supervisors reversed course this week and temporarily banned its police officers from using robots with lethal force. To break this all down, we're joined by Paul Scharre, Vice President and Director of Studies at the Center for a New American Security. ​Paul previously worked in the Office of the Secretary of Defense where he played a leading role in establishing policies around unmanned and autonomous systems and emerging weapons technologies.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This week, cohosts Steve Crowe and Mike Oitzman discuss the recent unveiling of the Tesla Optimus bipedal robot at the Tesla AI Days 2022 event. We also learn about the latest in warehouse and logistics automation in an interview with Swisslog USA President, Markus Schmidt.

This week, we talk with RoboTire CEO Victor Darolfi about automating tire-changing in auto shops. Victor explains the challenges of combining vision and robots to automate dirty, back-breaking work.

Co-hosts Steve Crowe and Mike Oitzman are joined by Dan Kara to preview and discuss the upcoming RoboBusiness and Field Robotics Engineering Forum. The events take place October 19-20, 2022 at the Santa Clara Convention Center. To register, go to robobusiness.com

Cohosts Steve Crowe and Mike Oitzman discuss the latest news about commercial UAVs, the recent FTC investigation of Amazon's pending acquisition of iRobot and Mike interviews Kishore Boyalakuntla, VP of products at automation provider Berkshire Grey

Michael Kohen, founder and CEO of Spark AI, joins the show. Michael discusses situations in which AI and machine learning still come up short for robotics systems and how his company's human-in-the-loop system helps solve edge cases in real-time. He shares specific real-world examples, including details about Spark AI's partnership with John Deere and its autonomous tractors. The podcast also discusses the top stories of the week, including the US government imposing restrictions on AMD and NVIDIA selling certain AI chipsets to China. We breakdown what this could mean for robotics.

Jessica Yip, co-founder and chief operating officer of Canadian startup A&K Robotics joins the podcast. She discusses A&K's autonomous, electric pods that are being tested at airports to move passengers with mobility issues around concourses. The podcast also recaps the stories of the week, including Chili's pausing a robotics pilot, Locus scoring a major win with GEODIS and more.

This week we get an update on the technology embedded within the Indy Autonomous Challenge racecars in a conversation with Joe Speed, plus we learn how Skyline Robotics is deploying robots to clean skyscraper windows in New York City.

Peter Finn, managing director of Cowen’s Industrials investment banking group, joins the podcast to discuss the state of investment into the robotics industry. Peter discusses how inflation, higher interest rates, and other world issues have impacted how investors are approaching robotics companies. He also shares the trends he's seeing, markets he's excited about, investment advice and thoughts about Amazon’s pending acquisition of iRobot.

This week our guest is Sally Miller, Chief Information Officer for DHL Supply Chain North America. Sally discusses the deployment of robotics at DHL North America, and how DHL likes to work with vendors to innovate and optimize their logistic workflows. This episode is sponsored by Weintek USA, maker of HMIs. For more information check out: http://www.weintekusa.com or call +1.425.488.1100

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/

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.

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.

This week, hosts Steve Crowe and Mike Oitzman discuss the recent ban of autonomous tractors in California and what this means for the AGTECH industry to be able to test new solutions in California. Featured interview this week is Anders Beck, VP of Innovation and Strategy at Universal Robots. Anders introduces us to the new UR20 robot that was launched at Automatica 2022 this week. Special music this week is Tennessee Mines by Sam Hill, embedded with a CC Attribution-NonCommercial-sharealike 3.0 license.

Niels Jul Jacobsen, CEO of Danish startup Capra Robotics, joins the show to discuss the company's innovative mobile robotics platform. He also shares lessons learned from scaling and selling Mobile Industrial Robots, an AMR developer he founded in 2013. Capra Robotics Website - https://capra.ooo/ https://www.therobotreport.com/watch-disneylands-spider-man-robot-crash-into-building/ https://www.therobotreport.com/watch-ghost-robotics-quadruped-go-swimming/

In this episode, cohosts Steve Crowe and Mike Oitzman learn the incredible story behind the bionic clothing company Cionic. The company was founded in 2018 by serial entrepreneur Jeremiah Robison who joins us on the show this week to discuss his mission to build bionic clothing that can analyze and augment human movement, enabling the body to move with more freedom and control.

In this episode, co-hosts Steve and Mike interview Scythe Robotics co-founder and CEO Jack Morrison. They discuss the market for autonomous landscaping, the features of the Scythe autonomous mower and Scythe's unique RaaS-based business model for commercial landscapers. Steve and Mike also discuss robots realism in the movies, the upcoming Automate Show and the launch of Epson's new flagship SCARA robot product line.

Amir Bousani, co-founder and CEO of RGo Robotics, joins the show to discuss the state of perception for mobile robots. RGo Robotics recently exited stealth mode with $20 million in funding to scale its perception platform.

This week, hosts Steve Crowe and Mike Oitzman are joined by WTWH VP of Robotics, Dan Kara and Jake Hall (AKA the Manufacturing Millennial) to recap the 2022 Robotics Summit that occurred last week in Boston. The event brought together a who's who of industry leaders to learn about new innovation and the technology that's supporting the growth of the robotics industry.

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,

In this episode, Steve and Mike are joined by Dan Kara and the three of them discuss the 2022 RBR50 honorees, including some of the most innovative and memorable solutions in this years cohort of award winners.

In this episode, we interview Willy Pell, VP of Autonomy, from Blue River technology. Willy goes deep on how AI and machine learning are core to the automation of John Deere tractors and discusses how important this is to the future of agriculture. Blue River Technology was acquired by John Deere in 2017 and is now a core part of the next generation of John Deere tractors, implements and making farming easier. Willy talks about the parallels between autonomous driving the autonomous control of farming equipment.

Welcome to Episode 74 of The Robot Report Podcast, which brings conversations with robotics innovators straight to you. Join us each week for discussions with leading roboticists, innovative robotics companies, and other key members of the robotics community. In today's episode: Steve and Mike discuss the product announcements and serendipitous discoveries at the recent MODEX tradeshow in Atlanta Georgia. Mike highlights his favorite new products that debuted at the show. We also interview Brian Tu, Chief Revenue Officer of DCL Logistics, who are a Universal Robots customer that deployed the UR robots to help improve the efficiency of the logistics operations in their distribution center.

Mike talks to Black I Robotics founder and CEO Brian Hart, to discuss the introduction of the new Black I Fullscope Mobile Heavy Lift Arm. This new robotics solution is designed to be mounted on top of an AMR/AGV and deployed in a warehouse to autonomously pick up/drop off heavy items. The robotic arm is being shown publicly for the first time at MODEX in Atlanta next week. Steve and Mike also discuss the latest news stories from the last week.

Steve and Mike discuss the latest robot news from the last week, including the acquisition of Matrox by Zebra Techolologies, a new Realsense camera from Intel, the new Techmetics TRV AMR, the new Robotnik Robout heavy payload AMR and the deployment of BreezyOne Robot at Houston Airports. Our guest on the show today is Mark Messina, who as recently hired as CEO, Americas for warehouse solutions provider Addverb Technologies. Addverb is one of the largest warehouse solutions providers in Asia and are beginning its expansion into the Americas under the leadership of Mr Messina.

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.

OTTO Motors CEO Matt Rendall joins us to discuss the growth and evolution of OTTO Motors, the current state of the material handling business and how simulation plays a big role in selling and supporting AMRs. We also celebrate the one year anniversary of the MARS 2020 mission.

On this weeks episode we interview Savioke Robotics founder and CEO Steve Cousins about the new features and capabilities of the recently released Relay+ robot. Relay+ includes a new mechanical actuator to interact with the elevator without the need for a wired integration. Steve Crow and Mike Oitzman also review the most interesting robotics solutions on display at the 2022 World Ag Expo, including apple picking drones, dairy cow inoculating robots and a mummy shooting mobile robot.

Adrian Macneil, co-founder and CEO of Calif.-based startup Foxglove, discusses open source visualization and debugging tool for robotics. He discusses the company's spin-out from autonomous driving company Cruise, how its solutions differ from RViz, challenges of robotics development and the keys to running his startup.