Design
For the past three years, the Winnipeg International Airport, or YWG, has been working with WHILL Inc. to trial the company’s autonomous wheelchair technology to help travelers get to their terminals. Starting next month, the wheelchairs will officially be available for broader customer use as the airport has signed a two-year agreement with the Tokyo-based company. “This ground-breaking technology will help further enhance accessibility at YWG and provide a more inclusive, barrier-free airport environment. On top of improving service for passengers, the autonomous wheelchairs will also allow for more independence by making services offered post-security more accessible to everyone,” Winnipeg…
Engineer
Picture this: A mobile robot drives around a distribution center while carrying a shelf of products, but on its path, it encounters something its navigation system doesn’t recognize and gets tripped up. Workers on the floor don’t immediately recognize the robot has stopped, and the problem needs to be addressed quickly to avoid potential backups. New York-based SparkAI said it has developed a system designed to account for this kind of situation by combining software, artificial intelligence, and human intervention. The company pitches its product as a three-step system. Let’s say a robot encounters a problem like the one described…
Design
Dynam.AI today said its Context Augmented Machine Learning, or CAML, software capability is now available. CAML uses what the company called “scientific first principles” and the laws of physics, human behavior, and macroeconomic conditions for more accurate models and analytics. Dynam.AI has partnered with industrial drone provider American Robotics, which uses artificial intelligence and CAML to detect and identify potential oil and gas leaks. “Traditional machine learning is only able to work with the data it’s given,” said Dimitry Fisher, chief scientific officer at Dynam.AI, in a statement. “But when your AI has access to scientific first principles, it can…
The news of Argo.AI's closure late last month hit the robotics world hard. The Pittsburgh-based autonomous vehicle company, which was backed by both Ford and Volkswagen, wasn't meeting expectations for several factors, including the economic downturn and a lack of funding from new investors, reported Pittsburgh Inno. The remains of the company will be absorbed by Ford and VW. Argo's closure is certainly a blow to the robotics industry, but thankfully there are still companies working on advancing autonomous driving. We wanted to share a few interesting companies working in the autonomous trucking space. That market made more than $900…
During its “Delivering the Future” event at its robotics manufacturing facility yesterday in Westborough, Mass., Amazon.com Inc. announced Sparrow, its new robotic arm designed to complete product-handling tasks. “Sparrow is the first robotic system in our warehouses that can detect, select, and handle individual products in our inventory,” the company said in a blog post. “Sparrow represents a major advancement in the state-of-the-art technology of industrial robotics. Leveraging computer vision and artificial intelligence (AI), Sparrow can recognize and handle millions of items.” An Amazon spokesperson told TechCrunch the robot can recognize about 65% of the company’s product inventory and takes…
Carl Palme, CEO of Boundless Robotics, knows all his customers personally. To be fair, the company just has around 50 of them. They took part in the beta phase of the company's cannabis-growing robot, Annaboto. But Palme told Robotics 24/7 that number will be higher once it’s able to 3D print enough of the product at volume. Annaboto was designed to help everyday people grow their own marijuana at home. The system features a full-spectrum light, an odor-management system, a vision system, a tripod, an odor-mitigation vortex, and a fully automated hydroponics system. Boundless is offering the product to customers…
Design
Warehouses and distribution centers will soon be in the rush of the holiday season, working long hours to fulfill orders. While e-commerce sales aren’t at the all-time highs they were at last year and throughout 2020, the market still demands strong, flexible, and resilient operations to meet peak demand. Robots can help answer the call in response to labor shortages and as the underlying technologies powering these autonomous systems continue to improve. Last month, the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) reported that more than half a million robots were sold globally last year. Autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) are being used…
BOSTON—As the head of Amazon.com Inc.’s autonomous mobility technology and product development program, Mikell Taylor understands what it takes to make robotic systems that scale. She was a key figure in the Seattle-based company's development of the Proteus industrial autonomous mobile robot (AMR), which was unveiled earlier this year. It’s the first AMR to come from the team at Amazon Robotics, and it will be used in-house and not sold in the commercial market. The robotics team was formed after the e-commerce giant bought Kiva Systems in 2012. Taylor spoke earlier this month at the Association for Advancing Automation’s (A3)…