The Robot Report Podcast

Jorgen Pedersen, president and CEO of RE2 Robotics, and Travis Schneider, business development manager of RE2 Robotics, discussed the evolution of the company, which was founded in 2001. RE2 was focused nearly 100% on defense work in 2016, but now the defense sector accounts for less than one-third of its business. We also discuss the company's new Sapien line of intelligent robotic arms and adding more autonomy to its manipulators.

Kevin Blankespoor, VP of product engineering at Boston Dynamics, takes us inside the development of Stretch, the box-moving robot the company introduced this week. Blankespoor describes the evolution of the product design, the many system integration challenges, plans to improve the Pick vision system going forward, similarities between Atlas, Spot and Stretch, and much more.

Suma Reddy, CEO of agriculture robotics startup Future Acres, discusses the challenges farmers are facing today and how automation can help. I also discuss the most interesting stories of the week, including laser sounds from Mars, the truth about Tesla's "Full Self-Driving" beta software and rumors surrounding Amazon's secretive home robot Vesta.

Enrico Krog Iversen, CEO of OnRobot, discusses advancements in end of arm tooling and what's next for the industry. Juan Aparicio, VP of Product at READY Robotics, talks about simplifying programming interfaces to democratize the use of robotics.

Kevin Dunlap of Calibrate Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm, joins the program to discuss the SPAC craze, recent robotics investments, and his thoughts about the state of the industry. I also hit on the robotics stories of the week, including Motional testing Level 4 robotaxis in Las Vegas, NASA's video of the Perseverance Rover landing and more.

Rick Faulk, CEO of Locus Robotics, discusses the company's $150 million Series E funding round and new unicorn status. He also explains why Locus should be a publicly-traded company. Will Wilder, CEO of Wilder Systems, joined the show to discuss the cobot system his team built that automates rapid COVID-19 testing results. He said the system is being adapted to help test for other viruses, such as Ebola and Zika. We also celebrate the incredible team at NASA JPL for putting robots back on Mars.

Helen Greiner, CEO of Tertill, a Boston-based startup developing gardening robots, joined the show to talk about how she will help the startup scale. She also discussed the challenges of developing consumer robots and how her experience co-founding iRobot will help. We also talk drone delivery and what went wrong at her commercial drone company CyPhy Works.

Tom McCarthy joins the show to discuss how Motiv Space Systems is developing a robotic arm to survive the extreme cold of the Moon’s South Pole. The COLDarm can survive temperatures as environments as cold as –279°F. COLDarm could be headed to the Moon in 2024. I also talk to Ben Upcroft, VP of Technology at Oxbotica, a company developing autonomy software for all sorts of autonomous vehicle applications, both off-road and on-road. We discuss the keys to infrastructure free navigation, the acceleration of innovation in the autonomous vehicle space and why Level 5 robotaxis might never arrive. And I discuss how Spot Arm will improve Boston Dynamics' Spot quadruped and the disappointment of Waymo not expanding its robotaxi service in Arizona.

For the first time, yearly orders of robots from non-automotive sectors surpassed automotive robot orders, as sales of robotic units in North America increased 3.5% in 2020 from 2019. A3 president Jeff Burnstein takes us inside the numbers and what it means for the future of robotics. We also introduce you to Canvas, a startup that recently exited stealth mode. It's trying to automate drywall finishing using robotics. We learn about the challenges and opportunities for Canvas' system. We recap the top stories of the week, including Softbank's ever-changing robotics strategy, AutoX launching a fully driverless robotaxi service in China, and Amazon launching a new robotics upskilling program.

American Robotics became the first drone company approved by the FAA to operate automated drones without human operators on site. Reese Mozer, CEO & co-founder of American Robotics, joined the podcast to discuss the implications for the company and the industry. He takes us through the technical capabilities of the company's drones, how humans will remain in the loop, and what types of missions its drones will now carry out. I also comment on the week's top robotics stories, including Marc Raibert weighing in on Atlas' dance skills, President Trump pardoning Anthony Levandowski, and Cruise raising another $2 billion and sending its autonomous vehicles over to Japan.