Medbot targets pharmacy deliveries for hospitals and other medical facilities. | Credit: Richtech Robotics Richtech Robotics just unveiled its newest autonomous mobile robot (AMR): Medbot. The mobile robot provides round-the-clock medication deliveries for pharmacy operations. Medbot joins a mature lineup of AMRs designed for specialized operations in autonomous floor cleaning, hotel delivery, and hospitality. “At Richtech Robotics, we’re passionate about pioneering solutions to mitigate workplace inefficiencies and build systems that address relevant industry concerns,” said Matt Casel ..read more

ETRI’s robotic hand with omnidirectional tactile sensors. | Source: ETRI Researchers from the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) are developing tactile sensors that detect pressure regardless of the direction it’s applied. ETRI is introducing a tactile sensor that fits into a robotic finger with stiffness and a shape similar to a human finger. The robotic finger can flexibly handle everything from hard objects to deformable soft objects. “This sensor technology advances the interaction between robots and humans by a significant step and lays the groundwork for robot ..read more

The Robot Report Podcast · The inside scoop on food manufacturing with Chef Robotics In episode 152 of The Robot Report Podcast, Steve Crowe and Mike Oitzman discuss the news of the week. Our featured guest on the show this week is Rajat Bhageria, founder and CEO of Chef Robotics. Rajat takes us through the inception of Chef Robotics and how he’s broken down the various workflows in the commercial kitchen. Chef Robotics is focused on food manufacturing, deploying automation to the tasks of filling ready to cook, prepared meals with individual food items. The second feature on the show today i ..read more

For humanoid robots to be useful in household settings, they must learn numerous tasks. 1X Technologies today released a video (above) showing how it is applying artificial intelligence and teleoperation to training its robots and controlling sequences of skills via voice. “This update showcases progress we’ve made toward longer autonomous behaviors,” said Erik Jang, vice president of AI at 1X Technologies. “We’ve previously shown that our robots were able to pick up and manipulate simple objects, but to have useful home robots, you have to chain tasks together smoothly.” “In practice, the ro ..read more

Teradyne Robotics has named James Davidson as its chief artificial intelligence officer, effective May 28, 2024. This move comes as Teradyne Robotics, which owns Universal Robots (UR) and Mobile Industrial Robots (MiR), has embraced AI as part of its strategy. Davidson most recently served as chief architect at MiR, where he guided the technical direction for the new MiR1200 Pallet Jack. His broad application of AI spans diverse projects, Teradyne pointed out, from implementing Google’s pioneering AI-generated ads and developing healthcare fraud detection systems at MITRE to advancing robot ..read more

Organization: Figure AI Country: U.S. Website: https://www.figure.ai/ Year Founded: 2022 Number of Employees: 11-50 Innovation Class: Technology, Product & Services Editor’s Note: The 2024 RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards were announced on April 9. The RBR50 has been around for the past 12 years, and the inaugural RBR50 Gala was held during the Robotics Summit & Expo in Boston. The Robot Report will be highlighting each RBR50 winner throughout the year. Since exiting stealth mode in January 2023, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Figure AI has swiftly navigated toward commercializing a humanoid ..read more

OpenAI robotics research is resuming, applying generative AI to tasks such as manipulation. | Credit: OpenAI OpenAI LLC, which is best known for ChatGPT, is restarting its robotics research group. The San Francisco-based company has been a pioneer in generative artificial intelligence and is returning to robotics after a three-year break. This comes as no surprise, since The Robot Report has reported on several robotics companies working with ChatGPT and large language models (LLMs) over the past year. The reboot comes after the company shut down its robotics group in July 2021. That shutdow ..read more

RDS is extending its partnership with AMP in a new facility. | Source: AMP AMP will be putting its technology to work in another facility owned by Recycling and Disposal Solutions. (RDS). RDS will use the AMP ONE sortation robot at a site in Portsmouth, Virginia to extract mixed recyclables and organic materials from municipal solid waste (MSW) for further processing. “At RDS, we’ve been early and enthusiastic adopters of advanced technologies to increase recovery and landfill diversion, drive down processing costs for local governments, and generate data for continuous facility improvement ..read more

Mitsubishi Electric’s new RV-35 heavy payload industrial robot. | Source: Mitsubishi Electric Mitsubishi Electric Automation launched a new robot series for applications that require heavier payloads and longer reach. The company says its new RV-35/50/80 FR series of industrial robots are designed for handling large workpieces and heavy objects to expand automation opportunities for OEMs and end-users.  “The RV-35/50/80FR series is going to be a game changer for Mitsubishi Electric. These heavier-payload robots give us the ability to do applications that were previously inaccessible to ..read more

Figure 1: Global Robotics Investment – Trailing 12 Months. Robotics investments reached at least $466 million in April 2024, the result of 36 funding rounds. The April investments figure lagged recent months and was the smallest amount since November 2023. April 2024’s investment total was significantly less than the trailing 12-month average of $1.1 billion (see Figure 1). Providers of collaborative robots scored the two largest rounds. As described in Table 1, Collaborative Robotics’ $100 million Series B round was April’s largest investment. As its name implies, the California-based firm ..read more