The Robot Report Podcast

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.

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.

In this episode, co-hosts Steve Crowe and Mike Oitzman are joined by Dan Kara and the team discusses their thoughts about what's coming in 2022 in the world of robotics. You'll get three unique perspectives on the latest trends and happenings in industrial robotics, mobile robots and autonomous vehicles.

For the last episode of 2021, the editorial staff of Steve Crowe, Mike Oitzman and Dan Kara review and discuss the top robotics stories of 2021. Thank you to all of our faithful audience for a great year. If you have feedback or input, leave us a voicemail at therobotreport.com/voicemail

Welcome to Episode 64 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 interview Fady Saad from Massrobotics and Eric Anderson from AWS Robotics about how Massrobotics and AWS are enabling young robotics startups to accelerate their growth and development. We learn about the new startup incubator program starting in 2022 and how your company can participate. Also on the show, we hear from Savioke CEO Steve Cousins about how a new feature in the Savioke Relay+ is delighting customers and setting the standard for social robotics interactions in the field.

Welcome to Episode 63  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 interview robotics innovator Esben Østergaard, CEO of Reinvest Robotics and cofounder of Universal Robots. We discuss the potential impact of the pending EU AI Act and Machinery Directive. These directives are likely to impact the growth of AI startup in the EU and burden them with rules that will hamper innovation. Esben offers his thoughts about innovation and how successful robotics startups need a competitive playing field to be successful. Could this be the death of robotic and AI innovation in the EU? Listen in to learn more. Here's a link to Esben's recent blog about the impact of the EU AI Act and Machinery Directive. “The approach of the current machinery directive is sufficient. The problem is with governance. We recommend focusing on ensuring that products on the market actually comply with the current EU law, not creating new regulations,” said Østergaard. Steve and Mike also review the latest robotics news stories from the last week, including the following stories reported on The Robot Report: - Robotics Summit & Expo 2022 call for speakers - MiR is building autonomous pallet jacks - Knightscope IPO taking security robots public - Serve Robotics closes $13 million funding round - Nuro, Waymo bring autonomous deliveries to California

Samir Menon, founder and CEO of Dexterity Inc. joins the program this week. We discuss Dexterity's rapid growth and its approach to developing full-stack robotic picking for logistics, supply chain, and warehousing applications. Mike and Steve also discuss some recent trending stories, including China's role is ending a potential autonomous vehicle SPAC. https://www.therobotreport.com/spac-merger-plus-autonomous-trucks-called-off/ https://www.therobotreport.com/gatik-autonomous-box-trucks-milestone-walmart/ https://www.therobotreport.com/autonomous-racing-goes-head-to-head-at-the-autonomous-challenge-ces-in-las-vegas/

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.