The Robot Report Podcast

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.