Howdy! It’s Becca Szkutak filling in for Brian again before he returns next week. Why don’t you give him a warm welcome back by sending him all of your funnest pitches and juiciest tips?
Don’t worry, I’m not going too far and I’m sure I will be back when Brian decides to take PTO again in another year and a half — hopefully sooner.
In the meantime I hope to still receive your wonderful pitches — especially about startups and their fundraises — and hear all your opinions and grumblings. You can reach me at rszkutak@automate.org and if it’s helpful, I will not be attending CES in person.
But before we return to Brian’s wonderful headline writing and witty quips, we have a week of news to parse through.
This week we meet a company that has designed the world’s first explosion proof robot, we have an update on Tesla’s long-awaited humanoid program, and we learn about using time crystals to create robotic movement.
We also have our weekly round up of notable startup fundraises and our latest episode of the Automated Pod with legendary roboticist Rodney Brooks.
See you next time.
Explosive Accomplishment
The sheer speed of innovation in the robotics sector right now can make it seem like everyone is in a race against each other to deploy their tech, whether that be humanoids or training simulators.
But hard problems can’t be solved fast just because investors want returns or so that a company can beat its competitors. ANYbotics knows this well as the company just released a robot it's been working on for the past eight years.
Your first thought might have been that it took so long because the company began before the recent wave of AI innovation and the catalyst it brought, but software wasn’t the problem. The issue was actually finding hardware that wouldn’t explode.
The company just released its ANYmal X four-legged system which is the first robot in the world to be certified as explosion proof or “ex-proof.” This means it won’t get sparked by hazardous environments even if it fails, which makes it perfect to work on oil and gas plants.
ANYbotics CEO Péter Fankhauser said that when they were first approached by the oil and gas industry about making this system, industry experts told them the task would be impossible because of the potential bulkiness and flammability of standard parts like batteries and motors.
“We had almost eight people over years working on just understanding what it takes,” Fankhauser said about getting a robot ex-proof certified. “We now have 11 patents on the system. So, it was painstaking, but I think we're extremely excited about that.”
The industry was clearly willing to wait as the company was able to work with energy heavyweights like BP and Shell while it was developing the robots and it is already shipping them to Equinor and DSM-ferminech. Continue Reading >
Crystal Ball
Do robots need an advanced AI-powered brain to be able to navigate, especially in more complex environments? With the sheer amount of money going into startups building these very foundational models, it’s easy to assume yes, but that might not be the case.
A3 contributing writer Liam Critchley found some fascinating research this week that discovered you can get robots to move using the concept of time crystals, or a pattern of stable motion that a system upkeeps itself.
Researchers from the University of Amsterdam were able to use this approach to get a group of small simple robots, that didn’t have individual brains and could only communicate with their direct neighbors, to start to move together as one.
While these experiments were performed under pretty specific circumstances as far as the makeup of the robots goes, it’s a promising sign that there could be brainless robots down the line.
“This approach could lead to simpler, more robust and more versatile robots that work more like animals do” researcher Corentin Coulais told A3.
Robust AI founder Rodney Brooks discusses scaling beyond 100 deployed robots, handling unreliable warehouse Wi-Fi, and designing machines that people can take control of. Watch on YouTube>
Dr. Jan Zizka, (Brightpick) discusses the tension between engineering quality and startup speed, and why robotics companies need to balance both.
Jagdeep Singh, (Rhoda AI)believes the industry needs a much larger and more diverse source of training data to build robots that can handle the unpredictability of real work. At Rhoda AI, that starts with internet video.
Andy Zhang (ABB) - What's an industrial giant like ABB to do amid a humanoid hype bubble? Lots. While general purpose nabs headlines, industrial arms and cobots dominate deployment.
Automated contributor Rebecca Szkutak (hey that's me!) rounds up the most consequential recent funding rounds in robotics, automation, and physical AI.
Beyond Vision, €28 million, Series A
Enact Intelligence, $30 million, Pre-seed
FORT Robotics, $20 million, Undisclosed
Kodama Systems, $7 million, Undisclosed
Reliable Robotics [pictured], $115 million, Series D
Realbotix asks the questions everyone in the industry has been too scared to ask. Do people want humanoids to be attractive? Should robots be looksmaxxing? The company announced Echo, its line of ultra-realistic humanoids this week that includes both table top and full body models with human-like faces and hair.
These robots are designed for communication and companionship so the emphasis on their physical appearance does make sense. They also come with their own digital twin that allows users to both customize their personality but also access the brains behind the robot from their laptop, phone etc. The company says these interactive busts are going to start shipping in 2027.
Bedrock Robotics confirmed a recent rumor that it raised a $600 billion Series C round that values the two-year-old company at $4.1 billion. The construction tech company’s systems started working on live commercial construction sites back in August and it is now looking to move into its next phase of growth.
The company also announced some substantial hires. One is Amy Jones Satrom, an operations veteran from companies including Amazon, Nuro and Uber, who is joining as vice president of operations. It also hired Lando Juarez, who was the head of legal for Uber’s autonomous mobility and delivery business, as general counsel.
If you want to hear more about what Bedrock is up to, make sure to tune into next week's episode of the Automated Podcast which features CEO Boris Sofman.
Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot is in “early production” Elon Musk said on the company’s recent third-quarter earnings call. The company is still ironing out the details of what this process will look like but Musk also added that it could take just over a year for the company to hit 20,000 in weekly production. The robot was initially supposed to start selling this year.
“I remain convinced that Optimus will be the biggest product on Earth and humanoid robots in general will be the biggest product on Earth,” Musk said on the call. “Optimus is a very big deal, but I don't want to temper expectations that we still have a lot to get through, and it's about a year or so that will take us to get through all that stuff. But as to the best of my knowledge, there is no one that is even close to Tesla with respect to a general purpose humanoid robot.”
The Association for Advancing Automation (A3) is North America’s largest automation trade association representing more than 1,500 organizations involved in robotics, artificial intelligence, machine vision & imaging, motion control & motors, and related automation technologies.
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