Ten more fundings of robotic companies (47 so far in 2015); two more acquisitions (bringing the 2015 total to 27); and an important strategic partnership all took place in October and November and are recapped below.
Fundings:
Medrobotics, the Raynham, MA developer of the Flex Robotic System, a snake-like minimally invasive system to reach into locations that were previously difficult to reach, closed a $25 million preferred stock financing package with existing shareholders. Proceeds will be used to expand the commercialization process of the Flex Robot System which received FDA approval in July.
Aeryon Labs, a Canadian military and first responder drone and vision systems maker, secured $45.9 million from Boston-based Summit Partners.
"In the last four years, we have grown 100 percent year-over-year in terms of sales and we've been profitable too, and we now expect that to move into the 200 percent sales growth range over the next couple of years," said Aeryon's Chief Executive Dave Kroetsch in an interview. "The cash infusion from Summit Partners will not only help the firm boost sales, but also more than double its headcount to about 200 people, most of whom will be based in and around its headquarters in Waterloo."
SkySpecs, an Ann Arbor, Michigan startup integrating an automated, drone-based data collection, vision, and analytics service for wind turbine and infrastructure inspection, received $3 million in equity funding. SkySpecs also received an FAA waiver to fly its drones commercially and landed its first two wind turbine inspection customers.
Righthand Robotics, a Cambridge, MA stealthy startup and developer of a 3-fingered dexterous gripper, raised $3.3 million from angel investors and VCs to continue developing their intelligent robotic order-picking system. RightHand's technology, with flexible grasping and fingertip barometric and tactile sensors, enables items which can be grasped by "feel".
Jibo, the social intelligent humanoid, received additional funding of an undisclosed amount from Fenox Venture Capital, a Silicon Valley-based VC firm. Fenox has arranged partnerships with SEGA SAMMY Holdings and CAC Holdings to help Jibo expand its sales and marketing in Japan and throughout the Asian marketplace.
CyPhy Works, a Danvers, MA startup headed by ex-iRobot co-founder and President Helen Greiner, received $22 million after raising an additional $900K from a Kickstarter campaign. CyPhy's tether technology enable its drones to stay aloft indefinitely, stream what it sees in high definition, and have its communications be secure and unjammable thereby valuable to defense, security, police, fire fighers and search operators.
Petnet, the manufacturer of a smart feeder for cats and dogs, raised $4 million from Amazon, iRobot and Black River, to expand and build out its digital supply chain strategy for pet owners.
MiR Mobile Industrial Robots received $1.436 million from five Danish investors after turning down offers from American, Chinese and EU VCs. The Danish startup of a mobile robotic platform for logistics chose five Danish investors who are investing their own money in MiR. This is a similar financing path that Universal Robots took and UR's CTO Esben Østergaard is one of those investors.
“After having been in dialog with a number of large and interesting investors, who each, of course, had their own agendas and wishes for strong influence, I stopped and thought: What is really important to a growth business? To be in control yourself and have freedom to act fast and in time! Consequently, I explored the possibilities among the existing owners, the board of directors and the network around MiR, and here a picture quickly emerged of an obvious, strong team of dedicated Danish investors. As I see it, we now have the required growth capital as well as the right competencies among the board members and owners in relation to where MiR is now,” says Thomas Visti, CEO.
Bionik Labs, a Canadian medical robotics startup company that develops exoskeleton solutions for people with restricted physical mobility, sold $6.2 million in stock and warrants (in February, 2015) in a private placement.
Corepath Robotics, a Danish startup using new-tech training methods to teach welding, milling and plasma cutting robots how to flexibly handle low-volume tasks, received $355K from two Danish VC funds.
Acquisitions:
ConMed, a New York state medical tech provider of surgical devices for minimally invasive procedures, acquired SurgiQuest for $265 million. SurgiQuest's AirSeal system enables access for robotics and laparoscopy procedures and has been used in more than 250K procedures in over 45 countries.
Kraken Sonar, a Newfoundland startup, acquired the unmanned marine assets and intellectual property of Marine Robotics, Inc.
"We believe that the ocean drone market is at an inflection point and set for major growth," said Karl Kenny, President and CEO of Kraken. "This acquisition brings us a significant underwater technology and IP portfolio and continues to build on our sensors-to-systems strategy to be a market leader in the Unmanned Maritime Systems industry."
Included in the assets acquired are underwater robotics technology, IP and related physical assets -- including an operational SQX-500 Unmanned Underwater Vehicle. In addition, the majority of the senior electrical, mechanical and software engineers that were previously employed by Marine Robotics Inc. are now Kraken employees.
Strategic Partnership:
Shenzhen DJI Innovations, the maker of the very successful line of DJI drones, has purchased a minority state in Hasselblad, the Swedish-based camera firm, for an undisclosed amount.
Frank Wang, DJI founder and CEO, said the two companies “share a passion to provide creative people with cutting-edge, inventive technology to help them take visual storytelling to the next level. The partnership will also help to push the boundaries of what’s possible in imaging technology," he added.
Since its inception in 2008, we've been compiling and vetting companies that manufacture robots or are directly involved in their making. Today that list has exceeded 4,000 manufacturers, integrators, service robot providers, startup companies, ancillary businesses and educational facilities.
The list is global and free. It is somewhat limited by language and resources. Nevertheless, it is a comprehensive representation of companies around the world involved in making robots. [We only report one entry for companies that have many subsidiaries and branches or a large factory or distributor network.]
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Job seekers, researchers and investors can quickly and freely find companies in their area of interest with links to their websites for further study. Click on a marker icon and a pop-up window will show the company name, category, speciality and URL.
The database is regularly updated and segmented into the following major categories:
Industrial robot makers (344)
Integrators (350)
Service robots for governmental and corporate use (888)
Service robots for personal and private use (205)
Startup companies (592)
Ancillary businesses (1,292)
Educational and research facilities and organizations (332)
The database is still growing and can use your help. Please notify us of missing companies in your area. Use the global map, set the filter to "All" and enlarge the area to show all the entries in your area. Click on each one to get the company name, type and URL. Then send us an email with companies that are missing.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Savioke Relay Dash delivery robot. Source: Savioke
Robotics is finally stepping out of science fiction and into service, if not in our homes, then at least in our hotels, hospitals, restaurants, warehouses, hardware stores and other retail outlets. This new report series from Silicon Valley Robotics highlights the first steps of startups Fetch Robotics, Fellow Robots, Savioke and Adept into the emerging service robotics industry, with additional analysis contributed by industry experts.
The service robotics industry has long been the subject of science fiction, with robot maids, like Rosie from the Jetsons, or cleaners, like Wall-E. Or medical assistants and all round helpers like Baymax from Big Hero 6. Baymax was actually modeled on the latest in soft robotics research, but there’s still a big gap between research and commercialization, and so far there have been very few successful service robotics companies.
Robotics pioneer Joe Engelberger founded the world’s first industrial robotics company, Unimation, in the 1950s, and then moved on to starting the world’s first service robotics company, HelpMate Robotics, in the 1980s. HelpMate Robotics is best known for hospital delivery robots, although Engelberger explored a range of eldercare and assistive technologies during his time. [1]
Until now, industrial robotics has been the dominant sector for robots, particularly in the car industry and consumer electronics. The industrial robotics sector is worth more than $32 billion dollars in sales, software and service, even though there are only 1.5 million industrial robots in the world (compared to more than 10 million Roombas)! There has been steady growth in industrial robotics for the last five years and this trend shows no signs of slowing.[4]
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
However, the service industry is also growing strongly and encompasses all of the new market areas not already defined as industrial robotics. It is hard to accurately predict growth here when there is such potential for rapid growth as costs drop, new systems are introduced and new suppliers start to proliferate. (The International Federation of Robotics defines service robotics as “a robot that performs useful tasks for humans or equipment excluding industrial automation application.”[2] While in general, industrial robots tend to be large arms or gantries and service robots tend to be smaller and mobile, the definition has been dependent on the end application rather than the pure form or function of the robot. The IFR continues to refine the robotics definitions and track the industry statistics.[3])
The IFR has tracked overall annual growth at around 11.5% so far, and projects more than 20% annual growth to come in the service robotics industry. But some niche areas have already demonstrated growth of between 150% (mobile platforms) and 650% (assistive technology) in the last year. The primary market areas for service robots so far have been in defense, field (agriculture and inspection), logistics and health/medical applications.
One of the new categories to emerge in the last year is the humanoid helper, kiosk robot or retail assistant. The robotics companies featured in this report showcase some of these emerging opportunities.
Fetch Robotics provides mobile robots and mobile manipulators for ecommerce warehouse facilities. Fellow Robots provides mobile retail assistants for hardware stores. Savioke provides a delivery robot for hotels and is working on eldercare opportunities. Adept provides a general-purpose mobile base that can be utilized in many settings, including one application as a restaurant server.
The cost of service robotics systems is dropping significantly, putting service robots in reach of many new market partners. But these new market opportunities are also arising due to continual improvements in the safety and compliance of robot systems, as well as the development of more intuitive user interfaces.
What is also clear is that none of these robots replace workers, but instead supplement work at critical bottleneck times/tasks or improve health outcomes making jobs more attractive, especially in areas where there is a chronic shortage or high turnover of staff.
At the end of the day, the value proposition for service robotics is in supporting workers to work better, faster and safer. But these new robot assistants offer a tantalizing glimpse of a reshaped work paradigm, where humans gravitate to managerial jobs, leaving more of the menial and repetitive jobs to robots.
The rest of our free report will be available in installments on Robohub, and is also available here . The full report features case studies and analysis from industry experts and investors; OATV, Citrix Startup Accelerator and Konica Minolta Business Innovation Center.
Jibo got $16 million from Asian VCs to enable Jibo to speak and sell in Japan and China, while Blue River Technology got $17 million from a group of agricultural VCs to expand product development to new areas, as funding for robotic ventures continues to soar. UPDATED To include funding for Soft Robotics, Inc. Flyability, and Naïo Technologies.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Jibo, the Cambridge-based maker of a family robot that expects to deliver 7,500 pre-ordered units and then launch a marketing campaign in March/April of 2016, got $16 million in funding from two Asian VC firms. The funding is to localize apps and gestures and enable Jibo to speak Japanese and Chinese so that it can be sold to those markets.
“We’ve received significant interest from Asia. I just got back from Japan and there’s a different kind of interest in that market for robots. In the US, it’s more about what can this robot do for me. But in Japan, there’s almost a folk lore to robots,” said Jibo CEO Steve Chambers.
Aaron Tilley on the Forbes staff wrote: “Jibo has a robot head that swivels on a static base in a cartoon-like manner. Users can talk to Jibo, and it will talk back. Jibo can also take pictures or play games. The robot’s camera recognizes users and remembers their preferences. The company is integrating Jibo with a bunch of third-party services to open up what the robot can do. A Skype integration, for instance, would allow the user to take calls on the robot and then have the robot’s camera follow them as they move around. Some companies are interested in integrating Jibo with other smart home devices. The company is also now working on these third-party integrations with Internet services in China and Japan.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Blue River Technology, a Silicon Valley startup, has perfected its lettuce-thinning technology and is now providing that service to 10% of the growers in the industry. This new round of funding is to expand their technologies to be able to sense each individual plant, determine its health and needs and then precisely apply the correct amount of care, plant by plant, at tractor speed, the very definition of precision agriculture.
Blue River uses computer vision and robotics for various agricultural tasks. It was founded in 2011 by two Stanford University alumni, and has made breakthrough algorithms and robotic solutions for identifying weeds and selectively killing unwanted plants. Its solution is particularly suited to organic agriculture and for fields with chemical-resistant weeds.
Osaro, a San Francisco startup, received $3.3 million in seed funding to accelerate the development of AI for robots to speed up the training and programming process.
Soft Robotics Inc., a Boston startup, received $3 million in Series A funding from Material Impact Fund, Taylor Farms Ventures and Haiyin Capital. The funds will be used to enable rapid growth and widespread deployment of their unique gripper system for advanced manufacturing and food handling and the ag industry not only in the U.S. but in China as well.
Naïo Technologies, a French startup with its first sales in 2015, raised $3.3 million from the Emertec and CapAgro investment funds, a WiSeed crowdfunding campaign and via its previous shareholders. The newly obtained funds will allow the company to finance international expansion, R&D activities and to double sales in 2016.
Kurion, a California integrator of service robots for high-risk applications, acquired Oxford Technologies, a 60-employee UK and EU provider of robotic services for nuclear facilities and clean rooms, for an undisclosed amount.
Flyability, a Swiss drone startup, raised $2.53 million. “This round brings Flyability the resources needed to launch its first product to market, which will be available in 2016”, said Patrick Thévoz, co-founder and CEO of the company. The company has already shipped prototypes to its first customers focusing on industrial inspection in the energy and transport infrastructure industries, and first responders such as firefighters, police forces, and search & rescue professionals.
BOTTOM LINE: Money continues to flow to robotic ventures well into the holiday season. Over $1.2 billion has been invested in more than 50 robotic startup companies, and an amount well above that figure has been involved in 29 acquisitions.All this in one year.
The IFR (International Federation of Robotics) estimates that by 2018, one-third of all the industrial robots installed worldwide will be in China and said, “China is engaged on a historically unprecedented effort to catch up in the race towards automation. The latest figures show that sales of industrial robots jumped to around 57,000 units in 2014 – a rise of 56%.”
The Chinese government’s offensive to make this happen — outlined in a 2014 plan China Manufacturing 2025 (also called “Made in China 2025 Initiative”) — provides governmental stimulation for both (1) the use of robots and (2) the manufacture of robots. Modernizing production methods and the use of robots is an explicit part of the plan. Reducing dependency on foreign companies and the in-country manufacture of robots is also part of the plan. The plan is part of a larger 30-year macro plan to transform China from being a “big industrial country” to a “powerful industrial country.” This process is ongoing even as China’s economy slows.
“Among this new manufacture, Robotics is playing a very important role. That is – while in recent years the other sectors were increasingly slowing down – the robotics industry is going up fast”, says Song Xiaogang, Secretary General of the China Robot Industry Alliance (CRIA). “In light of the above, the robotics industry is exhibiting rapid growth – completely unperturbed by the current economic fallow period experienced by other areas of Chinese industry”.
Hand-wringing and writing about China has become a growth media focal point. The fact is that China is poised to emerge as a global technological heavyweight in the not-too-distant future. Their government is pushing to improve the quality of manufactured goods and the lives of factory workers, AND they are also pushing toward in-country control of their manufacturing industry. At present, although Chinese robotics companies are receiving generous government support, they are still struggling with low volumes and high dependency on off-shore purchases of key components.
TRENDS IN CHINESE ROBOTICS FOR 2016
To get a better view on what 2016 will bring, a brief review of the three biggest Chinese robotics trade shows is in order, along with a look at Japan’s massive iREX show.
CIROS, Shanghai, July – 50,000+ visitors. One observer said that at the 2013 show there were 6 Chinese robot makers, a number that doubled to 14 in 2014. At this year’s CIROS there were 25 — quite an indicator that China’s “Made in China” initiative is working. Earlier this year The Robot Report mapped that growth by plotting 194 new Chinese companies involved in the making of robots.
World Robot Conference, Beijing, November. Going by the photos from this show, the biggest hits were soccer playing robots, ping pong players, restaurant servers, noodle makers and bell ringing music makers. Going by the exhibitors list, “Jiqiren” (machine people) were the biggest hit, with 93 exhibits. Not all exhibitors were companies making or involved in the making of robots; many were non-Chinese providers albeit with a Chinese presence. Two of the Big Four of robotics were there (Yaskawa and ABB) along with Foxconn and Panasonic. Service and collaborative bots predominated, and they represented both offshore and high-tech in-country companies such as Ninebot and RooBo.
IAS, Shanghai, November – 135,000+ visitors. According to one friend who attended, a large percentage of this show’s attendees were not buyers, but families and visitors coming to see the robots. Many of the exhibitors showcased the entertainment aspect over the technology and business benefits. Most of the media from the event showed human-looking robots, dancing robots, robots carrying food, ping pong playing robots, robots ringing bells and robots drawing pictures. Nevertheless, from behind that noisy facade, offshore and Chinese vendors showed heavy duty robots for the auto industry and assembly robots for smartphone and electronics components manufacturing. There was no doubt that the auto industry and smartphone makers were the buyers that the exhibitors wanted to talk with.
iREX, Tokyo, November – 121,000+ visitors. iREX, like the Chinese shows, was split between the two aspects of robotics: industrial work horses and service robots for professional or consumer use. iREX was overwhelmingly focused on the industrial, with three quarters of the exhibitors being involved in industrial robotics. A huge Industrial Robot Zone featured factory-ready arms that were all about speed and precision, whether for constructing a car or a bento box, a heavy duty application, or for working side by side with humans. On the opposite side was the Service Robot Zone, showcasing machines doing a wide variety of tasks, ranging from plucking tomatoes to cleaning underwater pipe systems. But similar to the Chinese shows, the booths drawing the biggest crowds highlighted “emotional” robots — a type of bot whose primary goal is to relate to people rather than be productive. Fittingly, one of the first sights seen while entering the exhibition floor was a gaggle of Pepper robots showing off their ability to detect feelings, much to the delight of visitors.
BOTTOM LINE:
China’s auto industry is hungry for robots. The IFR cited 21,106 robots were purchased in 2014 for that purpose, 49% more than in 2013. Shipments for 2015 are expected to increase 23% to 26,000. China can’t export their autos until they improve quality, and exporting cars is a major goal of the “Made in China 2025″ plan.
China’s electronics industry, including the makers of smartphones and tablets, are also gobbling up robots at an amazing pace. Foxconn, which makes their own Foxbots, now has 50,000 at work at Foxconn factories in China and intends to increase that number significantly as fast as they can. Hence the focus at all the shows — in China and elsewhere — on robots that can safely work in tight-fitting assembly lines alongside human workers.
The public is hungry for consumer bots and for the entertainment aspect of robotics. Over 180,000 ECOVACS robotic vacuum cleaners sold on Singles Day in China last month (up from 70,000 in 2014).
These three drivers — plus rising wages, chronic turnover, dangerous working conditions, the shrinking labor pool, and jobs that are unappealing to the working-age younger generation –are all reasons why China is investing in robots both as a user and as a maker.
China is truly emerging as a global technological heavyweight, and, in the not-too-distant future is very likely to fulfill their plan to transform China from being a “big industrial country” to a “powerful industrial country.”
[CAVEAT: For the time being, most of the figures reported in this article, and in the media, are hard to come by and cannot be taken as fact. In addition to language being a problem, the new CRIA being overly optimistic in their statements, governmental incentives and businesses promising to deliver, and the propensity of the media to reprint press releases, much of what one reads is way too full of hope. Nevertheless, sifting through that data and eliminating as much hype as possible, one can only get an impression — as one gets from observing where the crowds go at trade shows — and make WAGs (wild-assed guesses) tempered by personal experiences. This article is an effort in that direction.]
The number of research reports covering the robotics industry has grown exponentially in the last few years. 81 have been previewed on The Robot Report thus far in 2015. The latest batch of 28 -- shown below -- brings the total to 109.
GLOBAL INDUSTRIAL AND SERVICE ROBOTICS (3)
Robotics 2016-2026, published December 2015, 120 pages, IDTechEx, $4,718
The existing and emerging robotics market sectors, which amounts to $25bn today, will grow to $123bn by 2026.
Global Robotics Market, September 2015, 86 pages, TechNavio, $2,500
Forecasts the global robotics market to grow at a CAGR of 29.11% over the period 2014-2019.
Robotics Market Forecasts, November 2015, 22 pages, Tractica, $4,200
Forecasts that the global robotics industry will grow from $28.3 billion worldwide in 2015 to $151.7 billion by 2020.
INDUSTRIAL ROBOTICS (4)
Industrial Robots: market shares, strategies and forecasts, July 2015, 973 pages, Wintergreen Research
Forecasts that markets are expected to rise 11.5% annually through 2021. Industrial robot markets at $22 billion in 2014 are anticipated to reach $48.9 billion by 2021.
Global Automotive Robotics, November 2015, 167 pages, BIS Research, $3,600
Key drivers of demand for robots include ongoing investments in new production capacities in emerging markets, modernization in major vehicle producing countries, reduction of the time needed to market of the products, lack of skilled labor/ rising labor costs, and high demand for precision and quality control, among others.
Global Food and Beverage, November 2015, 81 pages, TechNavio, $2,500
Forecasts the global industrial robotics market in the food and beverage industry to multiply at an incredible CAGR of 29% to 2019.
Machine Vision Systems and Components, August 2015, 245 pages, IndustryARC, $5,250
Expected to grow at a CAGR of 12.6% with total revenue of $8.6 billion by 2021.
MILITARY, CONSUMER AND PROFESSIONAL SERVICE ROBOTICS (10)
Global Service Robotics, November 2015, Accuray Researcy, $3,780
Forecasts the Service Robotics market to grow at 19% CAGR for next 5 years and reach $25bn by 2020.
Global Service Robotics, December 2015, 158 pages, Markets and Markets, $4,650
Forecasts Global Service Robotics Market to grow from $6.97bn in 2014 to $18.02bn by 2020 at a CAGR of 17.36%.
Professional Service Robots, December 2015, 101 pages, Grace Market Data, $1,600
Forecasts global professional service robot sales revenue is expected to grow by 11.9% annually in the coming 2015-2020 years
Global Professional Service Robotics, December 2015, 57 pages, TechNavio, $2,500
Technavio expects the global professional service robotics market to multiply at a rate of nearly 16% for the remainder of the decade.
Military Robots, December 2015, 150 pages, Markets and Markets, $4,650
Forecasts the Military Robot Market to grow from $13.55bn in 2015 to $21.11bn by 2020 at a CAGR of 9.27%.
Law Enforcement Robots, November 2015, 582 pages, Wintergreen Research, $4,000
Forecasts law enforcement, first responder and homeland security robots and technologies will reach $4.3 billion by 2021.
Consumer Robotics, November 2015, 63 pages, Tractica, $3,500
Forecasts annual shipments of consumer robots will increase from 6.6 million units in 2015 to 31.2 million units worldwide by 2020, with a cumulative total of 96.7 million consumer robots shipped during that period.
Worldwide Consumer Robotics, December 2015, Juniper Research, $2,950
Forecast that over 1 in 10 American households will own a consumer robot by the end of the decade, up from under 1 in 25 this year.
Telepresence robots, November 2015, 42 pages, Tractica, $3,200
Tractica estimates telepresence robot shipments to be 100,000 units by 2020.
Industrial Cleaning Robot Market, October 2015, Markets and Markets, $4,650
Forecasts the cleaning robot market, valued at $1.04bn in 2014, to reach $2.5bn by 2020 at a CAGR of 15.3% from 2015 to 2020.
UNMANNED AERIAL AND MARINE SYSTEMS (6)
UAV Market Analysis, October 2015, 215 pages, Markets and Markets, $4,650
Global Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Market estimated to be $10.1bn in 2015 and to grow to $14.9bn by 2020 at a CAGR of 8.12%.
Drones: Consumer and Commercial, October 2015, Juniper Research, $6,000
Forecasts consumer drone sales to reach 4M in 2015 and rising to 16M annually by 2020.
Commercial UAV Market, November 2015, Grand View Research, $4,700
Forecasts the global commercial UAV market at over $500 million in 2014 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of approximately 17% to 2022.
Global Autonomous Unnderwater Vehicles (AUV) market, August 2015, 120 pages, Markets and Markets, $4,650
Forecasts the total autonomous underwater vehicles market to reach $343.4 million by 2020, at an estimated CAGR of 13.42% between 2015 and 2020.
Global UAV Flight Training and Simulation Market, November 2015, 57 pages, TechNavio, $2,500
Forecasts the global UAV flight training and simulation market to grow at a CAGR of 6.06% over the period 2015-2019.
Global UAV Multirotor Market, November 2015, 61 pages, TechNavio, $2,500
Forecast the global multirotor UAV market to grow at a CAGR of 21.62% over the period 2014-2019.
HEALTHCARE AND SURGICAL SYSTEMS (5)
Robotic Exoskeletons, December 2015, ABI Research, $5,000
ABI predicts the robotic exoskeleton sector to reach $1.8 billion in 2025, up from $68 million in 2014, for a CAGR of 39.6%. This is particularly timely because the US Dept. of Veterans Affairs announced that it will cover the cost of ReWalk's powered exoskeleton.
Cardiac Surgical Robots, December 2015, 223 pages, Wintergreen Research, $4,000
Wintergreen forecasts that the market, at $72.2 million in 2014, will grow to $2.2 billion by 2021.
Global Specialty Surgical Endoscopy Products, November 2015, Life Science Intelligence, $4,995
The report says that the trend toward minimally-invasive surgery has driven rising sales of endoscopy products in a growing range of applications and that surgical robots are being developed for the purpose of enabling endoscopic surgeries.
Wearable Robots and Exoskeletons, October 2015, 161 pages, WinterGreen Research, $4,000
Although the market was only $16.5 million in 2014, this report anticipates sales to reach $2.1 billion by 2021.
Dispensing systems Market, October 2015, 272 pages, Markets and Markets
The report forecasts the global dispensing systems market to grow at a CAGR of 5.1% from 2015 to 2020.
BOTTOM LINE
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.The fact-based backbone for many of these research reports is the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) annual World Robotics Industrial and World Robotics Service reports. These two books represent the official tabulation from all the robot associations around the globe. The 2015 reports cover 2014 activity. The two 2015 reports can be purchased for $2,425. The IFR industrial robots report forecasts a 15% CAGR (compounded annual growth rate) for the next 4 years and, for the same period, the service robots report forecasts a 19% CAGR for professional and field service robots and 27% CAGR for household, consumer and personal service robots.
These 109 reports are costly but can be valuable to VCs, companies and their engineering and marketing research departments, and academia. Many of the reports duplicate the coverage of others and frequently differ on forecasts. Some are marginally useful; others are chock full of valuable information. But bottom line, all the reports are forecasting positive double-digit growth for most segments of the robotics industry.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Source: Times of Isreal
A consortium of Chinese companies, municipalities and investors — including Siasun, the largest robotics firm in China and the city of Guangzhou — have inked a deal to set up a $20 million R&D center in Israel dedicated to developing robot technology that China can use to modernize and automate its industrial base.
The investment follows the September establishment of a Sino-Israeli Robotics Institute (SIRI) as the centerpiece of a new $2 billion industrial park in Guangzhou.
The new Israeli R&D center will develop technology and robots worked on by Chinese and Israeli researchers in Israel. Products developed will be mass produced in China. In addition to industrial robots, the institute will develop robot “servants” – waiters, cleaners, security guards and customer service agents, and robotic assistants for construction sites, where finding manpower to do heavy work is becoming difficult.
From the 2015 archives of The Robot Report: 54 fundings of $1.267 billion, 31 acquisitions totaling over $1.97 billion, and one IPO all adding up to some surprisingly large figures.
[All citations below can be found in the 2015 archives of The Robot Report or by searching in the red search box on the right side of the menu bar above.]
$1.97+ billion in Acquisitions:
Universal Robots was acquired by Teradyne $350 million;
C&C Technologies got $280 million from Ocean Engineering;
Blue Belt Technologies got $275 million from Smith & Nephew;
SurgiQuest got $265M from ConMed;
Adept Technology got $200M from OMRON Industrial Automation;
SMD got $190M from China South Rail;
MTS Medication Technologies got $156M from Omnicell;
TELELAP ALF-X got $99.8M from TransEnterix Surgical;
and Segway, VisLab, 2D3 Sensing, Coord3, Next Metrology, FastBrick Robotics, Dane Systems, Delta Tau, Draganfly Innovations, gomTec, Intek Products, Intellibot, Jabez Technologies, JR Automation, KMel Robotics, Lacquey BV, Let's Make Robots, MACH4 Pharma Systems, Marine Robotics, Oxford Technologies, Sarcos, Theiss UAV Solutions and VGo all got acquired for smaller or unknown amounts.
$42 million in a single IPO:
Corindus Vascular Robotics got $42M for their IPO.
$1.267+ billion in equity fundings (seed, crowd, series A,B,C,D, VC, etc.):
Large and small -- but steadily throughout the year, all types of funding for robotic startups and spin-offs occurred during 2015.
Large fundings:
Softbank Robotic Group got $236 million in joint venture funding with Alibaba and Foxconn;
Auris Surgical Robotics got $149.5 million;
SZ DJI Innovations got $75M;
3D Robotics got $64M in two fundings during the year;
Yuneec Electric Aviation got $60M;
Jibo, in 3 separate fundings, got $52.3M;
Aeryon Labs got $45.9M;
Orbotix got $45M;
Zymergen got $44M;
Corindus Vascular Robotics got $42M;
Rethink Robotics got $40M in two fundings;
Hansen Medical got $35M;
Peloton Technology got $33 in two fundings;
GreyOrange got $30M;
CyPhy Works got $25.4M in two fundings;
Medrobotics got $25M;
Xenix got $25;
Fetch Robotics got $23M in two fundings;
Sino-Israeli R&D Institute got $20M;
Blue River Technology got $17M;
Zimplistic got $11.5M;
Clearpath got $11.2M and an undisclosed amount;
Virtual Incision got $11.2M; and
Ehang Ghost got $10.8M.
Smaller fundings:
Bionik Labs, $6.2M
Corepath Robotics, $.355M
DroneDeploy, $9M
Dronomy, $1.5M
Flyability in two fundings, $5.5M
Gamma 2 Robotics, $3.5M
Harvest Automation, $2.9M
HUVR Data Services, $2.0M
iCamPro Amarillo, $.25M
MiR Mobile Industrial Robots, $1.4M
Naïo Technologies, $3.3M
Osaro, $3.3M
Petnet, $4M
Rapyuta Robotics, $3
RedBird, $2.2M
Righthand Robotics, $3.3M
RoboCV, $3M
Sight Machine, $5M
Skidio, $3M
Sky-Futures, $4M
SkySpecs, $3M
Soft Robotics, $3M
Somabar, $.313M
Squadrone System, $3M
Wonder Workshop, $6.9M
Worx America, $2M
and Airware, Magazino and Ocean Aero were also funded but for undisclosed amounts.
Failures:
Catalia Health
What does it all mean?
2015 fundings are almost triple 2014 and the number of acquisitions has also grown. UAS, robots, robotics and robotic-like apps are entering our lives and workplaces everyday and everywhere - and getting funded. Unmanned systems were a big component in this year's fundings as can be seen in this chart by CBInsights:
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Looking back at the beginning of the digital era, hobbyists and early adopters dabbled for years but not too much happened until three software applications showed businesses how PCs and software could change the way they worked. Business people became aware mostly by word-of-mouth of the qualities and uses of WordStar, VisiCalc and dBase. Even though none of those three companies still exists, their concepts are ubiquitous in our world today.
As robot moves from behind fixed and caged locations to alongside us - as the new collaborative robots are doing; as they move from heavy-duty industrial applications to providing assistance and augmenting skills - as the new surgical systems and low-cost data collecting drones are doing; business people once again can see that rising tide and they want in (or said another way, they don't want to be left out). Ray Kurzweil said that auto companies don't want to be Nokia'd, i.e., they don't want to be pushed aside as typewriters, secretaries and stand-alone word processors were by WordStar, WordPerfect and MS Word, or Nokia's operating system was by Google's Android.
This awareness accounts for why companies of all types and sizes are finding strategic reasons to acquire robotic ventures to add to their arsenal of products and services. They don't want to be left behind, to be Nokia'd. And they are paying high prices for their acquisitions. Many thought the multiples Teradyne paid for Universal Robots were unreasonably high. Others suggested that the growth Universal has shown - and continues to show - make it worth every penny.
To me, I see that acquisitions make sense to and for the acquirer; I'm just disappointed that the acquired companies won't go public (there was only a single IPO in 2015!) so that investors such as myself can share in the fun and ride the wave.
This article was first published on IEEE Spectrum Automaton and is republished here with permission. For the IEEE version, click here; for the unabridged version, continue reading.
Collaborative robots (also called co-bots) are robots designed to assist humans in the performance of their tasks, i.e., to work jointly on a project. Because co-bots are almost plug and play — and very low-cost — SMEs are buying and the segment is quickly growing.
There are many reasons for the emergence of collaborative robots: to handle ergonomically challenging tasks, using them alongside humans in small-spaced electronics assembly lines, using them because they are affordable, using them because they are plug and play and easily trainable, using them for their flexibility to handle short runs, and using them to offload repetitive and boring jobs.
Co-bots are also emerging because sensors and computer power have become so cheap that they are driving down the cost of robots and making them more available to businesses of all sizes. Initially driving this movement was the EU SME Robot P-P-P started in Europe in 2005 with a goal of increasing worker productivity so that labor-intensive tasks wouldn’t be off-shored. Recently the movement has been promoted by the launch of the Baxter robot and its developer and chief promoter Rodney Brooks. And by the ease-of-use factor: co-bots are easier to train and deploy than big industrial robots.
Most professional service robots are collaborative by design; hence co-bots aren’t just for SMEs or for manufacturing use. Offices, homes, labs, warehouses, farms, distribution centers, hospitals and healthcare facilities are all enabling service robots to help them do their jobs better. The market is open-ended but current uses for co-bots include machine tending, material handling, assembly tasks and packaging. They also pick and place, count and inspect. As more co-bots are deployed, more uses will be discovered.
Huge Growth Potential:
In a human-machine study conducted by an MIT professor at a BMW factory, it was shown that teams made of humans and robots collaborating efficiently can be more productive than teams made of either humans or robots alone. Also, the cooperative process reduced human idle time by 85%.
At present, sales of collaborative robots represent 5% of the overall robot market but have strong growth expectations for the future. In fact, the market acceptance of collaborative robots and also drones are expected to be significant drivers in non-industrial robotic growth. This non-industrial growth will be split and different for differing aspects of the service robotics marketplace, but as Tractica (a Colorado research firm) projects, growth will be significant, exponential, and near-term.
The collaborative robotics sector is expected to increase roughly tenfold between 2015 and 2020, reaching over $1 billion from approximately $95M in 2014. Insiders suggest more rapid growth: that collaborative lightweight robots will become the top seller in the industry in about 2 years, selling hundreds of thousands and with prices falling to the $15,000-$20,000 level. In the September 2015 report, British market research firm TechNavio forecasts the global collaborative robots market to grow at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 50.88% to 2019.
Safety:
Industrial robots are caged to keep humans safe and out of harm’s way. Service robots are meant to safely leave the cage while doing tasks for humans. Collaborative robots come in all sizes and shapes and have integrated sensors and soft and rounded surfaces for safety purposes and to reduce the risk of impact, pinching and crushing. The biggest safety feature of collaborative robots is their force-limited joints, which are designed to sense forces due to impact and quickly react.
Companies and their co-bots:
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Rethink Robotics, a venture-funded Boston-based robotics firm headed by Rodney Brooks, markets a two-armed industrial robot named Baxter with a base price of $25,000 that can carry out relatively advanced functions such as removing defective items from product lines, packing finished items into boxes and performing basic quality-control inspections. Additional purchase costs include a mobile pedestal ($3,000), gripper ($1,750), and a 2-year hardware and software service contract ($7,000). With an expected useful life of three years, 40 hours of operation per week translates into an average cost of around $4/hour. Though this comes before additional expenses for electricity, maintenance and repair, it remains highly competitive with manufacturing wages in the emerging world.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Sawyer
Rethink also sells a narrower one-armed robot named Sawyer with a base price of $29,000 and similar additional costs as Baxter. Sawyer is designed primarily for machine tending, circuit board testing, and other precise, repetitive tasks, specifically those that take place in the middle of a long assembly line of electronics products. There’s a huge need for a robot that can do tasks like these, especially in Asia, and that’s the market Rethink is going after with Sawyer. “We’re moving into mass electronics manufacturing,” said Brooks in an interview connected with the receipt of a funding round for scaling up sales into China and the promotion of a distribution agreement with Shanghai Electric.
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Universal Robots, a Danish startup whose one-armed, 6-axis robots have had significant success in the marketplace. At this time they are the market leader producing at an annual run-rate of 5,000+ co-bots. They recently added a third robot to their product line and now have over 200 integrators and distributors around the world and thousands of sold robots at work in SME and larger factories.
All three of their robots are identical except in size and carry. The UR3, UR5 and UR10 can carry up to 3, 5 and 10 kilograms of load (6.6, 11 and 22 pounds). Pricewise, the UR10 costs $45,000, the UR5 costs $35,000 and the new UR3 is priced at $23,000. The UR3 can handle payloads of up to 3 kg (6.6 lbs), and perform tasks that include: mounting of small objects, gluing, screwing (it can tighten applying the correct torque), operating tools, soldering and painting. It has a reach radius of 500 mm (19.7 in) allowing it to be deployed in tight spaces.
Universal has found another and perhaps bigger use of co-bots through their work with automaker BMW, which already has 7,500 industrial robots at work in their factories. BMW has been testing UR robots alongside factory workers who had been tasked with ergonomically challenging assignments. The robots were quickly trained for those tasks and performed perfectly while freeing up the worker to do even more of what he or she was doing. The results of the tests turned out so well that a BMW spokesman, who oversaw the testing, said that it was likely that BMW would soon double or even triple their number of robots by the use of these low-cost, portable, easy-to-program, safe to work alongside robots. (With that kind of endorsement and prospect for the future, it’s easy to see why Teradyne paid $350,000,000 for Universal Robots.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.MRK-Systeme GmbH, a German integrator of industrial robot technology, offers two collaborative software packages which work, at present, with KUKA’s 5SI low-payload robot: SafeGuiding for moving the robot manually to teach it applications, and SafeInteraction which provides five human-robot safety functions to the robot control system.
They also integrate Kuka’s robot into their own branded KR 5 SI one-armed robot.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.F&P Personal Robotics, a Swiss spin-off from the University of Zurich, offers a line of co-bots emphasizing safety and functionality. Their robots are context aware, use soft material covers, have limited and controlled force sensors, motor torque is limited by the controller, and their software uses deep learning AI to enable their robots to adapt and improve based on human feedback.
F&P recently introduced their new P-Rob 2, an all-in-one robotic arm, with sensors and software embedded in a PC as control unit in the base of the robot.
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Bosch developed the APAS line of co-bots and has deployed 50 of them, mostly for internal operations. Safety is provided by a special sensor skin and software controls. Training is done using a graphic user interface on a teach pendant and the robot can be outfitted with an optional 3D camera system.
The Bosch APAS system was the first to be certified as an assistance system, i.e., safe to work alongside with human workers.
ABB, one of the Big Four global industrial robot manufacturers, recently launched a two-armed collaborative robot capable of advanced manual tasks. Called YuMi, the robot is able, with a high degree of precision, to handle small parts assembly such as mechanical components for watches, smartphones, tablets, PCs and other consumer electronics.
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The YuMi is dexterous enough to be able to thread a needle.
Early in 2015 ABB acquired gomTec, a startup producing a one-armed co-bot named Roberta. gomTec was a 25-person German company headed by Bernd Gombert, a mechatronics engineer with 100+ patents and who was the head of a DLR project which became KUKA’s LBR iiwa robot (see below). Roberta is a family of 6-axis modular co-bots using custom-made brushless motors and harmonic drives. Safety sensors and joint torque sensors can be optionally added. ABB is in the process of integrating a new intuitive programming user interface and rebranding Roberta to ABB’s brand and expects to launch in Q1 or Q2 of 2016.
Because ABB is so big and has such an extensive sales, distributor and integrator marketing force, they are expected to quickly penetrate the small parts assembly market with their lineup of plug and play one- and two-armed low-cost co-bots.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.MABI Robotic is a Swiss manufacturer of industrial robots. Their slick precision Speedy 10 one-armed table-top robot is lightweight, fast, easily trained but unclear as to whether it is safe to work alongside.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.FANUC Corp makes CNCs, servo motors, lasers and a full line of industrial robots. Fanuc is the biggest of the Big Four robotic providers. Their CR-35iA is their first collaborative robot and it can carry the heaviest load of all the co-bots so far announced, 77 pounds, and has full safety compliance using soft rubber skin and multiple sensors including either a vision sensor or a 3D area sensor.
The CR-35iA is too big for work in a narrow space such as on an electronics assembly line but it’s ability to carry heavy loads opens it up to other tasks better suited for a robot than a human such as inserting a spare tire into a new car’s compartment.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Smokie Robotics, a Tennessee startup, produces a modular one-armed robot configurable for 3 to 7 DoFs. Their OUR-1 robot uses open source architecture enabling easy integration into existing production systems and their OUR-2 robot will be available in Q1 2016.
KUKA Robot Group, headquartered in Augsburg, Germany, is one of the global Big Four producers of industrial robots. Their first foray into co-bots is the LBR iiwa (lighweight robot, intelligent industrial work assistant) which comes with the ability to carry 15 or 30 pounds of payload and the Sunrise controller. The robot has 7 joint torque sensors which enables the control system to detect externally applied forces. The robot has the sensitivity of a human and can quickly feed information through the controller to safely control the motions of the robot.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.The KUKA LBR iiwa fully complies with the industry safety standard ISO 10218 and the new standards for human-robot collaboration ISO 12100 and ISO 13849. Also, the LBR robot has been at work in the Daimler transmission plant since it was first tested in 2009. It has been used in the processing of more than 500,000 transmissions since then. Although the robot is programmed to perform automatically, it approaches objects carefully and adjusts to changed conditions. For example, if a workpiece is not optimally positioned, the robot adjusts its motion sequence accordingly using it’s SafeOperation software to restrict or monitor workspaces and safety zones between machines or between humans and machines.
KUKA, like the other Big Four vendors, has a global marketing capability consisting of sales people, distributors, integrators and resellers. If they can get the selling price down from its present $100k+, they have the ability to become a major player in the SME market – a significant breakthrough expanding KUKA’s products into that arena.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Kawada Industries makes the Nextage two-armed industrial robot. Safety is handled by the stereo vision cameras in the head and by using low-power motors and elbow controls so that don’t jut outwards even when both arms are in operation. Over 150 of the $60,000 robots have been sold and are at work in factories in Japan, according to Discuss Japan in a May, 2015 report.
What’s Next for Co-bots?
Companies of all types and sizes are finding strategic reasons to acquire or invest in robotics and robotic ventures to add to their arsenal of products and services as the metrics of ownership and deployment become more affordable.
Universal Robots has a big head start. 2016 will likely see them continue to lead, but KUKA, ABB and FANUC will begin to make inroads and experiment with different prices. By the beginning of 2017, the competition will become even more intense as the number of co-bots sold approaches 15,000 units – $0.5 billion in sales revenue. It’s still too early in the evolution of co-bots for provider consolidation, but some systems are sure to be preferred because of their flexibility, ease of training and support base.
The SME marketplace is huge – 6 million companies worldwide and almost 70% of the world’s manufacturing. A few low-cost plug and play robotic tools can easily fit into the manufacturing process in most of these companies, which is why it is easy to imagine that co-bots could be on track to sell hundreds of thousands of units beginning as early as 2018.
In an article about the pace of sales for the SoftBank Pepper robot, the China Post reported that Taiwan-based Hon Hai Precision (AKA Foxconn) has sent a team of 30 to survey the US market for future acquisitions of robot production firms.
On December 27th in Japan, another 1,000 of the $1,600 Pepper robots were sold online in just one minute — this makes 7,000 sales in the past 7 months. The next sale date is January 28th. Foxconn is currently producing 10 Pepper robots per hour at factories in Yantai (Shandong Province, China) and is working to improve efficiency and raise production to 15 per hour.
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The Pepper app store for add-on applications offers a range of more than 200 free and paid apps. These apps range from quiz games, English picture books, hairstyle and clothing chat games, timers, dance instruction, lie detection, brain games, exercise trainers, animal sounds, food apps like beef bowl and noodle shop locators, piano playing, baseball talking, English for kids and many more.
Pepper, created initially by France-based Aldebaran to act as a “social companion for humans,” is advertised by SoftBank as not only being able to read human emotions, but also to respond to emotional cues such as laughing or frowning.
Softbank recently upgraded Pepper to be able to memorize and store data on human responses by using cloud-based artificial intelligence applications developed by the company’s subsidiary, Cocoro SB.
The newsworthy part of The China Post story was Hon Hai Precision’s 30-person US delegation to explore purchasing companies that can help Foxconn increase its production of this very complex robot. Once sales expand from Japan to China (and then the rest of the world), production will need to keep pace; hence the concern and exploratory shopping trip. The joint venture between Alibaba, Foxconn and SoftBank has provided hundreds of millions of dollars for production ramp-up costs, which are likely to include money for capital expenditures such as robots and other automation devices, as well as for acquisitions of companies that make those devices.
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At a press conference last week at CES, Toyota, led by Gill Pratt of DARPA fame and now CEO of Toyota Research Institute (TRI), informed the world what Toyota intended to do with it's billion dollar investment in their new AI research facilities in Silicon Valley and Cambridge:
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.“Up to now, our industry has measured on-road reliability of autonomous vehicles, in the millions of miles, which is impressive. But to achieve full autonomy we actually need reliability that is a million times better. We need trillion-mile reliability. Toyota has traditionally been a hardware company because in the past the most important technology for enhancing human mobility was hardware. Times have changed, and software and data are now essential components of Toyota’s future mobility strategy.”
“It is entirely possible that robots will become for today’s Toyota what the car industry was when Toyota made looms. Home robots may be even more personally prized in our future than cars have been in our past. Toyota’s goal is to move people across the room, across town, and across the country.”
"Our initial technical team directing research will include James Kuffner, CMU professor and former head of Google Robotics, who will be our area lead in cloud computing... [and also six others]."
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.The portion of Pratt's announcement that James Kuffner had left Google and was joining Toyota - and Pratt - was newsworthy in the robotics world. It showcased the changes in leadership stemming from the abrupt earlier departure from Google of Andy Rubin, the original leader who left after a buying spree that brought 8 robotic startups into Google. James Kuffner became the acting CEO of the Replicant robotics group which recently located within the Google X Lab. Conor Dougherty, in a NY Times article, wrote:
Google’s robotics division has been plagued by low morale and a lack of leadership since the unit’s founder left abruptly in 2014. Now Alphabet is cleaning it up. Over the last two months, Alphabet, the new holding company that separated Google from its collection of speculative projects, has reframed the robots effort, moving it from a stand-alone division inside Google to a piece of the X research division. The company has also hired Hans Peter Brondmo, a technology industry veteran who last worked at Nokia, to help with management.
X, which is run by Astro Teller, is using some element of robotics in numerous projects like self-driving cars; Project Wing, an effort to deliver packages with drone aircraft; and Makani, an effort to capture wind energy with high-flying kites.
Brondmo joins Jonathan Rosenberg, who is a troubleshooter for Larry Page, the Google co-founder who is Alphabet’s chief executive, and Aaron Edsinger, previously the CEO of both Meka and Redwood Robotics, in the day-to-day management of the robotics group.
The Rubin Google acquisitions include: Schaft, a Japanese start-up developing a humanoid robot; Industrial Perception, a Silicon Valley start-up that developed a computer vision system for loading and unloading trucks; Meka Robotics, a robot developer for academia; Redwood Robotics, a start-up intended to compete with the Baxter robot (and others) entering the small and medium-sized shop and factory marketplace; Bot & Dolly, a maker of robotic camera systems used for special effects such as in the movie "Gravity;" Autofuss, a design and marketing firm and a partner in Bot & Dolly; Holomni, a maker of powered caster modules for omnidirectional vehicles and Boston Dynamics, an engineering company specializing in building robots and software for human simulation.
The RoboUniverse trade shows and conferences, and the Inside 3D Printing shows, hosted by MecklerMedia, have been acquired by Rising Media, a Germany-based global events producer focusing on Internet and technology-related conferences and exhibitions.
The unexpected MecklerMedia dissolution, was announced on December 21, 2015 and comes on the heels of health concerns for CEO and founder Alan Meckler, as well as “many months of unsuccessful efforts to raise capital and/or seek a potential acquirer” for the company.
Meckler is better and reported in a recent email:
I had a life threatening illness and am just recovering after 8 weeks of home rest. I should be okay now but decided that running all over the world working on trade shows was not a wise thing to do going forward - so I am now semi-retired.
RoboUniverse, a conference and expo with 2016 events scheduled for Singapore, New York, Seoul, Shanghai and San Diego, provides a series of seminars, tutorials, and exhibits from which attendees can gain insight into robotics and learn about the educational, business, and technical opportunities within the industry.
Inside 3D Printing has many more events scheduled for 2016 (Singapore, Düsseldorf, São Paulo, New York, Sydney, Paris, Seoul, Mumbai and San Diego). It's a B2B trade show for the 3D printing industry.
Rising Media, headquartered in Starnberg (near Munich) Germany, with offices in London, Boston and Santa Barbara, didn't provide any financial details regarding the acquisition but Matthew Finlay, Founder and CEO of Rising Media, said:
“Inside 3D Printing and RoboUniverse are fantastic additions to our portfolio of market-leading technology events. Our European team was pleased with the launch two years ago of Inside 3D Printing in Germany. Adding the already successful U.S. events to our operations creates a great deal of synergy.
Forbes has once again expanded their “30 under 30″ list this year to celebrate the achievements of the up and coming; the main list now covers 20 different sectors, and an inaugural European edition has also been released, with 10 sectors. While the expansion of the list dilutes the brand (it’s more like “900 under 30″), it does highlight some interesting trends in robotics, AI and automation. Advanced manufacturing, conversational systems and human-augmented AI are key themes on this year’s list. And you’ll recognize some of these bright young minds from their contributions on Robohub.
Advanced manufacturing, 3D printing and rapid prototyping
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Tim Sandy and Markus Giftthaler were honoured on Forbes “30 under 30” list for their work on the In Situ Fabricator mobile construction robot.
Karishma Shah– Google[x] Rapid Evaluation Program Manager
Google Alphabet’s youngest hire, Shah cofounded a natural language processing project at Google[x], led operations for the Project Wing drone delivery service, and now is program manager for Google’s rapid prototyping team.
Markus Giftthaler and Timothy Sandy, PhD candidates at ETH Zurich’s Digital Fabrication lab
Giffthaler and Sandy are developing techniques and tools for robotically fabricating complex structures on building construction sites as part of the Swiss National Centre of Competence (NCCR) in Digital Fabrication. You may have read about their work on the In-situ Fabricator on Robohub.
Danny Cabrera and Ricky Solorzano, Cofounders BioBots
This company makes 3D printers and inks that can print living tissues.
Phil DeSimone, Cofounder Carbon3D
Carbon3D builds 3D printers for manufacturers that use a chemical process so that printing can be achieved 25 to 100 times faster than traditional 3D printing methods.
Ionut Budisteanu, Founder VisionBot VisionBot has developed an affordable pick-and-place machine for automatically assembling integrated circuits; the machine is aimed at makers, hobbyist and SMEs looking to turn their prototypes into products.
Max Friefeld, Cofounder Voodoo Manufacturing
Voodoo Manufacturing offers scalable 3D printing services for single part prototyping up to high volume production.
Maxim Lobovsky, Cofounder Formlabs
Formlabs makes desktop 3D printers.
Drones
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Philipp Oettershagen was honoured by Forbes 30 under 30 for breaking the solar powered UAV flight endurance record – 81 continuous hours of autonomous flight!
Philipp Oettershagen, PhD Candidate ETH Zurich AtlantikSolar Project
Oettershagen has been busy breaking solar powered UAV flight endurance records with the Atlantik Solar Project, which you may recall seeing on Robohub.
Tom Brady and Danny Ellis, Cofounders SkySpecs
SkySpecs makes software for inspection drones, allowing end users to automate inspection and analyze inspection data.
Yash Mulgaonkar, PhD Candidate at U Penn
Mulgaonkar’s research is focused on developing rapid fabrication methods for drones and other robots, and on training robots to coordinate together on tasks.
Alec Momont, Founder Drones For Good
Drones for Good leverages open source drone technology to explore how drones can be used for social good, such as delivering emergency supplies and medication.
Sampriti Bhattacharyya, Founder Hydroswarm
You may recall hearing from Bhattacharyya on Robohub — she’s made our Women in Robotics list in 2014, and also did an ICRACam pitch at IROS earlier that year. Her company, Hydroswarm, makes autonomous underwater drones for swarming applications.
Health and medicine
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Luna is a rehabilitation robot for orthopedic and neurological patients by EGZOTech.
Harbaljit Sohal, Postdoc at MIT
Sohal develops neural implants that can be more easily integrated by the human body.
John Barrett, PhD at Newcastle University
Barret’s research focuses on neuroprosthetics and brain-machine interfaces
Michal Mikulski, Founder EGZOTech
EGZOTech is developing physical therapy robotics for automated diagnostics and treatment of neurological disorders.
Patrick Slade, Cofounder PSYONIC
PSYONIC develops low cost artificial hands
Dhananha Jayalath and Chris Wiebe, Cofounders Athos
Athos develops smart clothes that use sensors to help athletes understand which muscles they are engaging.
Ben Harvatine, Founder Jolt
Jolt develops sensors for detecting sports concussions.
Conversational robots for customer service
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.A Skolkovo startup, Promobot makes retail robots with conversational capabilities.
Dmitry Aksenov and Mikhail Naumov, Cofounders DigitalGenius
DigitalGenius provides natural language processing to provide big companies with conversational software robots for customer service that can answer questions in real time.
Oleg Kivokurstev, Cofounder Promobot Russia’s answer to retail robotics, Promobot is designed to answer customer queries, distinguish between repeat customers and new ones, and learn people’s shopping preferences.
Andrew Flachner, CEO and Cofounder RealScout
RealScout is a service for realtors and their customers that uses machine learning to respond to natural language queries, to help home buyers to personalize their search criteria and find features that may not be included in a standard MLS listing.
Matthew Ramirez, Cofounder WriteLab
Writelab uses algorithms to provide immediate feedback to students about the grammar, spelling and structure of their writing assignments.
Human assisted AI for augmenting and automating bespoke products and services
Navid Hadzaad – Go Bulter
The concierge app GoButler launched in 2015 uses “human assisted AI’ to fulfill requests such as dinner or flight reservations via text messaging.
Marcela Sapone – Co-founder Hello Alfred Hello Alfred is another concierge service that combines ‘intuitive technology with human intuition’ to anticipate your needs. The service offers home cleaning, dry cleaning, errand delivery, grocery shopping and other services.
Maran Nelson, CEO and Cofounder Clara Labs
Another example of “human assisted AI”, Clara Labs offers virtual administrative assistant services to executives and enterprises. NLP and AI are used to automate and streamline, while professional human assistants handle complex requests and do quality control.
Kieran O’Neill – CEO and Co-founder of Thread
Thread combines the savvy of human stylists with algorithms that track your style preferences and can quickly search through millions of products to hone in on items that meet your personal taste.
Levi Young and Dana Zingher, Cofounders Enclothed
Enclothed efficiently pairs personal stylists and customers by using algorithms to build a profile of your style preferences, size and budget, and searches for products to deliver to your door.
Miles Penn and Rafi Witten, Cofounders MTailor
MTailor is an app that uses the camera on your smartphone to measure your size and use the data to create custom-fitted clothing. YCombinator startup
Caroline Walerud, Cofounder Volumental
Volumental uses 3D scanning technology to find (or create) the perfect fitting pair of shoes, and they are looking to adapt the technology to eyewear next.
Ben Alun-Jones, Kirsty Emery and Hal Watts, Cofounders Unmade
Unmade offers custom machine-made knitwear; users pick and upload designs, sizes, yarn-type and colours, and Unmade uses a combination of knitting machines and knitware experts to finish your garment for you.
Smart homes and connected devices
Will McLeod, Cofounder Keen Home
Keen home makes smart vents to help you control the temperature of your home, room by room. McLeod is also cofounder of SmarterShade, a company that manufactures smart windows that respond to light and temperature by changing their tint.
Michael Wang, Cofounder FutureAir
FutureAir makes connected fans and air conditioners for efficiently managing indoor air quality.
Kristjan Maruste, Founder CoModule
CoModule offers a hardware/software package that bring connectivity to electric bikes and scooters, providing theft protection for users and vehicle diagnostics to manufacturers to help them improve their products.
Machine learning and algorithms
Scott Clark, Cofounder and CEO SigOpt
SigOpt uses algorithms to optimize A/B testing for websites and applications.
Nicole Hu and Ahmad Wani, Cofounders One Concern
One Concern uses machine learning and predictive analytics to asses damage after natural disasters in order to help emergency service workers.
Alexander Lavin, Research Engineer at Numenta
Lavin is working to develop artificial intelligence by reverse-engineering the human cortex.
Rob Bishop, Founder Magic Pony Magic Pony develops machine learning approaches to video enhancement, prediction and compression.
Lucy Stonehill, Founder BridgeU
BridgeU uses algorithms to match prospective students to the universities that best match their interests and career choices.
Steve Marsh, Founder Geospock
Geospatial data in real time for autonomous vehicles and other applications.
2015 was a phenomenal year for funding and acquiring robotic companies. Over $1.32 billion in seed, crowd, series A,B,C,D and VC fundings and more than $2.27 billion in acquisitions. And they've begun again in 2016.
January Fundings:
Woobo, a stealthy startup in Boston, received $800k from Kunlun (AKA Kalends), a Chinese provider of online games and software apps.
Savioke, a Silicon Valley startup headed by Steve Cousins, previously the CEO at Willow Garage, received $15 million from Intel, EDBI and Northern Light. Savioke's Relay delivery robots are now placed in 5 hotel chains and have added coffee to the arsenal of things it can deliver. In 2015, over 11,000 deliveries were made with Relay robots.
January Acquisitions:
Aesynt, a Pennsylvania company that produces and distributes hospital pharmacy dispensing robot systems, was acquired by Omnicell, a Silicon Valley medical device provider of advanced automation enabling health care facilities to acquire, manage, dispense, and deliver medications and supplies, for $275 million. Omnicell has been on an acquisition binge. In 2015 it acquired MTS Medication Technologies and MACH4 Automation, both manufacturing and marketing robotic pharmacy dispensing systems.
Ascending Technologies, a German provider of autopilot systems, unmanned aircraft systems and multi-rotor technology for professional, civil and research applications, was acquired by Intel for an undisclosed amount. At CES, Intel showed off Ascending's technology in a colorful video of 100 drones performing a light show in time with an orchestra playing a Beethoven Symphony. Intel gains expertise and technology (and 75 new employees) to accelerate the deployment of Intel RealSense technology into the fast growing drone market segment. Intel plans to develop UAV technology that can help drones fly with more awareness of their environments.
Mikrotron, a German provider of image processing systems used for designing robotic and automated processes, R&D, QC and process control, was acquired by Ambienta SGR, an Italian VC focusing on industrial environmentally-friendly companies, for an undisclosed amount.
It's too early to tell whether the record-breaking pace of 2015 fundings for robotic startups and the number of acquisitions will carry over into 2016, nevertheless here are the transactions that happened in February:
Fundings
5D Robotics raised $5.5 million in a seed round from private investors to enable the development of their commercial equipment automation business efforts which include mapping, inspection and providing vision and mobility systems for industrial heavy equipment. 5D Robotics is also a provider of centimeter level UWB radios and mobile positioning systems for defense applications.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.MicaSense raised $7.4 million from Parrot (which had previously invested $2M in 2014). MicaSense is launching a new multispectral camera (manufactured by Parrot) that utilizes MicaSense's ATLAS software platform for processing, management, presentation and analytics of sensor data and fits on any fixed-wing or multirotor drone. The new device, Sequoia, weighs only 100+ grams and has four narrowband filters (red, green, red edge and near infrared) for analyzing crop health for precision agriculture.
Sky-Futures got $5.7 million in a series A funding from the Bristow Group and MMC Ventures. Sky-Futures is a drone inspection service for the oil and gas industry. Bristow Group President and CEO Jonathan Baliff said:
Through our partnership, we will collaborate with Sky-Futures and its leading safety culture, operational integration, and analysis technology to capitalize beyond the growing need for global UAV inspection services in oil and gas to other industries, including search and rescue.
Titan Medical made a public stock offering that netted $12 million. Titan Medical is a Canadian company developing a surgeon-controlled robotic surgical system for minimally invasive surgery. Their SPORT™ Surgical System is being designed to expand robotic surgery into both simple and complex areas of surgical specialties and procedures that are currently under-serviced.
Acquisitions
iRobot sold off it's Defense Division for $45 million to Arlington Capital Partners, a government regulated sectors and verticals VC who will help fund and manage the new privately-held and as-yet unnamed spin-off. iRobot is a member of the ROBO Global Robotics and Automation Index (of which I am Co-founder). The new standalone company will focus entirely on the needs of defense, public safety and security. Existing iRobot management and staff will move over to the new company which will remain in Bedford, MA.
Deveron UAS (previously Deveron Resources, a Canadian mineral exploration company) acquired Eagle Scout Imaging, an agricultural UAS data provider, for an undisclosed amount with the goal of renaming and rebranding Eagle Scout Imaging and Deveron Resources into Deveron UAS, a provider of aerial data to farmers.
“We are very excited to be moving in this new direction,” comments David Macmillan, Deveron’s director and vice president of corporate development. “Our work over the past year suggests enormous investment opportunities exist across multiple verticals where UAS technology can be applied. We have identified a number of potential acquisition and joint venture possibilities in this area, and we are pleased to be working with Eagle Scout to build the premier Canadian precision UAS agricultural brand.”
"Bluefin's advanced underwater technologies and products are perfectly aligned with our expertise in undersea system integration," said Chris Marzilli, president of General Dynamics Mission Systems. "“We have long specialized in many of the technologies that are making UUVs increasingly effective, and have strong credentials integrating UUVs into naval platforms. With the added capability to design and manufacture UUVs, combined with our commitment to speeding innovation to our customers, this acquisition positions us well to further support our U.S. Navy customers.”
Many advances in our technologies occur through borrowing capabilities from one field to progress another. Our technological universe is built from a web of interrelated advances that push one another forward.
The practice of Enterprise IT is being transformed by a variety of innovations that emerged in the last decade. Vendors who have traditionally sold into this space are struggling to adapt. They are facing the Innovators Dilemma,[1] largely captive to their traditional business models.
We can expect a similar dynamic of disruption for the field of service robotics. Cloud computing, Software as a Service, and mobile connectivity represent an important competitive opportunity for every robotics-focused company, and the future of the service robotics industry is inevitably one of Robotics as a Service.
With each new generation, the weight of innovation and market momentum shifts. The latest generation is wrought from a mix of technologies that include cloud computing, Software as a Service, ubiquitous wireless connectivity, and universal end points.
Cloud computing is the notion that computer hardware is no longer something that everyone needs to purchase. Instead, compute cycles can be purchased from a centralized resource. One example of this is Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) which in 2014 had more than one million customers and was growing at 99% year on year.[2] EC2 is a type of “Infrastructure as a Service” (IaaS).
Software as a Service (SaaS) leverages the centralization of Cloud Computing with a targeted application offering, generally solving the whole of a business problem, whereby a company or individual can purchase a complete solution without needing to deal with servers, with installation, nor maintenance. This approach is increasing in popularity with IDC estimating $50.8B in revenue by 2018 up from $22.6B in 2013 on Enterprise SaaS applications.[3] SaaS ranges from collaboration technology like Citrix Gotomeeting to CRMs like SalesForce.
Ubiquitous wireless connectivity is about the degree to which every new device is connected wirelessly to the internet and is a significant shift in comparison to only a few years back. While wireless connectivity has been possible for a long while, smartphone adoption is now at over 64% of the US population,[4] assisted by massive increases in wireless data reliability, coverage, and speed.
Smartphones have taken over as the primary Internet connection point for most people, and even most businesses. Whereas connected end-points had for several decades been mainly desktop PCs, the emergence of Wi-Fi brought Laptops into dominance, and smartphones have since taken over. The expectation is that Internet Connected devices (the Internet of Things) will dwarf even the number of smartphones with 50 billion connected objects estimated by 2020.[5]
The combination of cloud computing, mobility, and ubiquitous connectivity is transforming Enterprise IT, and will impact a huge number of other industries. One symptom of this is the unprecedented number of startups emerging to reform almost every industry.[6]
Robotics is undergoing a similar transition, but from a different base. In this case, it’s enabled
by rapid reductions in the cost of components, innovation in physical artifacts, and all of the shifts in the cost and availability of compute cycles. Some of this has been explored over recent years as “cloud-robotics” for shared learning and offload of compute intensive tasks, and is now seeing practical implementation.
Imagine…
Device 27 is two feet tall, and specialized for leather cutting. It’s a core component in a production line in ShoesRUs, a small shoe factory in Portland, Oregon. After several months of unimpaired operation, Device 27 identifies early signs of a burn out in its motor three.
Device 27 is part of a whole of life service offering from FactoryRobotsCo, designed to address all the needs of a small local factory in the new “on demand” world of retail. The factory has no margin for downtime, and needs the service to “just work.”
Device 27 coordinates it’s own preemptive replacement and Device 27a arrives by self driving Uber or Amazon drone delivery and slots into Device 27’s role while Device 27 returns to base for maintenance.
This is not realistic in the near term, but consider the following elements.
In this world, winning players will be those who can offer a complete service
Big data and forecasting are used to optimize the service
All devices are continually connected back to base
The Service company integrates with other service offerings, such as Uber and Amazon, all with the goal of providing a seamless experience
As with today’s Software as a Service offerings, this solution can now integrate global best practices. In this case for running local robots. Local installation and maintenance are controlled by FactoryRobotsCo, and the owner of ShoesRUs need not maintain a large technical staff, nor incur large consulting fees.
Let’s consider some parallels between the changes in how we use computers in business with similar changes in robotics.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
In the same way that every business is now leveraging SaaS and cloud for IT, every business will be able to leverage SaaS and cloud as part of service robotics solutions. The first steps toward this future are already visible – some have been around for a while, some are emerging today – such as Rolls Royce and Tesla.
Once upon a time, Rolls Royce was famous just for their engines. Now Rolls Royce sells “propulsion” or “power by the hour” not engines.
Rolls Royce claim to have real time connectivity to every one of their engines as they fly around the globe, to collect a huge amount of performance and maintenance data and to ensure that maintenance is driven on an “as needed” basis rather than merely to a schedule. They also charge by the mile.
Tesla is another great example of putting service in the driver’s seat of their business. These cars are sold as a whole of life experience, with a focus on “ongoing delight.” Many argue that the rest of the industry will need to follow.
It’s been a perfect storm for Enterprise IT, and the accumulated capability represents a perfect storm for Robotics. This is a shift of power from local technologists calling the shots in the factory/workplace, to a world where capabilities are much more available: in the cloud, on demand, as a service.
Clayton Christensen, 1997, The Innovators Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail, Harvard Business Review Press
The rest of our free report is available here — or in installments at Silicon Valley Robotics — featuring case studies and analysis from industry experts and investors.
Universal Robots, the Danish manufacturer of a line of collaborative robots (also called "co-bots"), recently published financial statements which provide valuable insights into the growth potential of collaborative robots.
At present, sales of collaborative robots represent just 5% of the overall robot market. The collaborative robotics sector, according to multiple pay-for research reports, is expected to increase roughly tenfold between 2015 and 2020, reaching over $1 billion from approximately $95 million in 2014.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Universal Robots
In financial statements released in February, Universal Robots (UR) reported 2015 revenue of $61.44 million, a 91% increase over 2014, and net profit of $9.6 million before taxes for the year, up 122% over 2014. Unit sales, which began in 2009, have risen at around 75% each year to 3,500 in 2015. At year's end, UR employed 150 in Denmark and another 50 worldwide, had 7,000 robots at work in the field, and had a global network of integrators and distributors totaling more than 200.
Enrico Krog Iversen, UR's CEO, said he hopes that 2016 sales will exceed 90% and that UR had moved into larger space in 2014 to handle this level of growth. The new facility has a capacity of 33,000 units per year. At just 75% growth each year, as can be seen in the chart above, UR will hit their plant capacity by the end of 2019!
Last year Universal Robots sold to Massachusetts-based Teradyne, a publicly-traded provider of electronic testing equipment, for $285 million in cash and $65 million in options. Teradyne, with over 3,900 employees and a product line that doesn't include anything robotic, has a market value of $4.37 billion. Mark Jagiela, President and CEO, said of the acquisition:
This acquisition complements our System and Wireless Test businesses while adding a powerful additional growth platform to Teradyne. Universal Robots is the technology and sales leader in the fast growing collaborative robot market and we are excited to have them join Teradyne.
In regards to the acquisition, Iversen said that Teradyne was opening doors to their customers in the electronics industry which are prime prospects for UR co-bots. Regarding competition, Iversen said, "Our main competitor is manual labor." Stated another way, within the SME community, a big holdup is educating managers, engineers and workers regarding the value, opportunity, employee performance improvement and quick ROI of deploying co-bots as worker assistants. As this educational process progresses and succeeds, co-bot sales will surely follow.
The Top 8 Robot Companies
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.As ambitious as UR's fast growth figures and forecasted future sales are, they represent just one co-bot competitor serving millions of SMEs. They don't reflect what the Top 8 robot companies - Fanuc, Yaskawa, ABB, Kawasaki, Nachi, Kuka, Denso, Epson and Adept - have in store. Because each of these companies is publicly held, they are limited in what they can say about the future and don't provide any information about their plans relating to the introduction and marketing of their brand of co-bots. We do know that ABB has a two-armed robot named YuMi (some of which are installed at various Mercedes Benz factories) and a one-armed as-yet unnamed robot which they acquired from gomTec that will be rebranded and launched later this year; Fanuc recently introduced a heavy-lifting co-bot; Kuka has an elegant lightweight but very expensive co-bot; and each of the other vendors (except Yaskawa), have begun to offer various co-bots. Consequently the unit sales forecast in the chart above doesn't reflect any effect from the Top 8 companies.
Other co-bots - particularly those that add mobility to their capabilities - are creating new markets for guides, kiosks, store assistants, inventory takers, warehouse and distribution center "gofors", and countless other applications including mobile personal assistants such as the SoftBank Pepper robot. Many pay-for research reports suggest that these types of co-bots will grow at around 30% annually - a far cry from UR's growth these past few years - but substantial nonetheless. The SoftBank Robotics Group is producing 1,000 Pepper robots every month and plans to double that number when they begin sales later this year into China.
A bit of history
The European robotics initiative for strengthening the competitiveness of SMEs in manufacturing, called SME Robotics, was funded by the EU FP6 (Framework Programme 6) and started in March, 2005. It was chartered to determine ways to keep labor from being sent offshore to lower labor-cost countries and focused on the large number of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) at threat of offshoring. [SMEs are defined as manufacturing companies having less than 500 employees. The number of SMEs worldwide is estimated to be 6 million.]
The thesis was that if you empowered SME employees with robotic tools, the SME company would become more cost efficient and competitive and therefore not have to be off-shored. Thus the initial marketplace for co-bots was to SMEs.
In a parallel development in America beginning in 2008, Rodney Brooks founded Rethink Robotics and began educating American SMEs about the benefits of the Baxter line of robots he was developing. It’s rare that one man can influence a whole universe of stakeholders. But from his network of MIT students and extensive speaking engagements to his various entrepreneurial activities, he has informed and charmed his vision of what robots can do and how people and corporations can benefit. Timing, of course, played a role as have the rapid changes and lowered costs of new sensors and robotic technologies. But throughout, Rod Brooks has defined the need and sold the sizzle of collaborative robots. At first, his product, the Baxter robot, wasn’t able to fulfill his promises. Universal Robots’ robots, however, did – and their sales took off while Baxter’s stayed minimal. Last year Rethink did a major software upgrade and added a new one-armed robot called Sawyer. Reviews have been favorable for both changes and it appears that Rethink has finally become a real competitor in the co-bots marketplace. (See below for more about Rethink).
The auto company factor: BMW and Mercedes Benz
BMW, which utilizes ~7,500 industrial robots in their factories around the world experimented with UR co-bots last year with significant results. In a human-machine study conducted by an MIT professor, it was shown that teams made of humans and robots collaborating efficiently can be more productive than teams made of either humans or robots alone. They also found that they could increase productivity and also reduce ergonomically challenging tasks done by humans which increased morale and empowered workers with these easily programmed collaborative robots. A BMW spokesman said that, based on the success of these tests, he could foresee doubling or even tripling the number of robots in BMW factories.
When I asked UR's Iversen whether he had received a multi-thousand purchase order from BMW subsequent to their tests, he playfully responded by saying, "BMW is a strong partner."
Again, in a parallel development at a Mercedes Benz factory in Germany, in an effort to halve the 61 hours it takes to produce a car, Mercedes is shifting to what it calls “robot farming” - equipping workers with an array of smaller, lighter machines and co-bots. Customization is key to Mercedes' marketing and buyers are choosing an ever-increasing array of options causing a need for flexibility not presently available from legacy robots. Humans (and their co-bots) are being added to provide that needed flexibility. While robots won’t completely disappear, they’ll increasingly be smaller and more flexible and operate in conjunction with human workers rather than be off working behind safety fences.
“We’re moving away from trying to maximize automation with people taking a bigger part in industrial processes again,” said Markus Schaefer, Mercedes' head of production. “We need to be flexible.”
This trend toward adding humans augmented with co-bots back into the auto assembly process because of their ability to be more flexible than big industrial robots is being felt in studies at many of the car companies in Germany, Sweden and the UK. But it also broadens the co-bot marketplace by adding factories with more than 500 employees.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Rethink Robotics and other competitors
Rethink has recently been developing an international distribution and integrator network for it's Baxter and Sawyer robots. Along with Sumitomo Corp for Japan and Shanghai Electric for Eastern China, Rethink is working with startup Hunan Cothink Robotics Technology for Northern and Southern China. Cothink will have a capability to process up to 2,000 robots annually. Asia, and particularly China, are integral to Rethink Robotics global expansion plan.
"Chinese manufacturers are facing similar challenges to their counterparts around the world, including rising wages and labor shortages," said Scott Eckert, president and CEO of Rethink. "In order to stay competitive in a global manufacturing economy, these companies are looking at collaborative robots to help them become more efficient and responsive to customer demand.... Baxter and Sawyer are for sale in China now, with some units already deployed in a number of different customers. We have a lot of interest from electronics manufacturers as well as consumer products companies and the automotive supply chain."
Other one- or two-armed co-bot manufacturers include MRK-System GmbH, F&P Personal Robotics, Bosch, MABI Robotic, Smokie Robotics and Kawada Industries.
The list of mobile co-bot providers is much more extensive and includes (to mention just a few) companies like Amazon, Fetch, Grey Orange, Harvest Automation, MetraLabs, and many others. These companies, and their primary applications, will be the subject of a future article.
Bottom line
There's no doubt that the collaborative robot marketplace will be growing exponentially over the next few years - with UR leading the pack - and price, safety, flexibility and ease of programming being the key determinents as to which vendor(s) are chosen.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.In this original ten-part series, we’re putting the spotlight on European Robotics. You’ll be hearing from experts about the latest robotics technology with the power to change the way we work, live, and explore new frontiers. Articles will look at 3D printed prosthetics and assistive technologies, robots for minimally invasive surgery and diagnostics, automated farming and mining, and our ability to inspect critical structures in the air and under water. We’ll be highlighting the startups and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that are creating new markets in robotics, or using robots to improve their own productivity. Most important, we will dive deep into questions on everyone’s mind, about the impact of robots on policy, the economy, and jobs. Articles will be published every two weeks on the SPARC website and Robohub.
Europe’s roadmap for robotics, updated last December, highlights a future where robots break from their traditional stronghold in the manufacturing sector to power healthcare, agriculture, transport, civil, consumer, and commercial applications.
Historically, Europe was known for manufacturing and supplying nearly one third of the world’s industrial robots, with companies like ABB, Comau, KUKA, and Schunk leading the way. This is changing with a rise in companies worldwide producing industrial robots. There is now a realisation that beyond big industry, SMEs are becoming the powerhouse of Europe.
What usually gets lost is that more than 99% of all European businesses are, in fact, SMEs. They provide two out of three of the private sector jobs and contribute to more than half of the total value-added created by businesses in the EU. Moreover, SMEs are the true back-bone of the European economy, being primarily responsible for wealth and economic growth, next to their key role in innovation and R&D.
The empowerment of SMEs happens by both allowing them to be productive through the use of robotic technology, and by nurturing a new wave of robotics startups that will mature into the next successful robotics companies.
This vision has been reinforced by the very way in which Europe funds robotics projects. In 2014, Europe launched a public-private partnership called SPARC with the European Commission investing €700M, and the private sector represented by euRobotics investing triple that amount. The total of €2.8B is the largest civilian robotics programme in the world. The Robotics Multi-Annual Roadmap, prepared by euRobotics, highlights the needs of the field, and the European Commission uses it as a guideline to fund projects. This strategy has led to a strong integration between academia and industry. It is not uncommon for larger companies to be the leaders of European projects, or to receive a significant portion of the funding. And a number of funding instruments are specifically designed to empower startups and SMEs. A full list of European Projects funded can be found here and here.
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So, what will SMEs be working on? For the most part, focus is on improving quality of life for Europeans with practical solutions to practical problems. The technology is motivated by societal challenges, including: aging populations, healthcare, concern for the environment, and access to resources including food, minerals, and energy.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
In healthcare, examples include robots that assist the disabled and elderly in their homes, smart prosthetics, and surgical robots for high-tech operations. Agriculture is being transformed through aerial imaging and sensing, as well as the automation of specific tasks including milking, plowing, and picking. Autonomous cars could have an impact on quality of life and the environment by optimising the use of resources and time, while reducing the amount of energy used. And with tasks such as mining, construction, and high-risk inspection, robots will increasingly be doing the dull, dirty and difficult.
Startups driving these applications are bubbling up from robotics incubators and innovation hubs across Europe. Most recent disruptive companies to emerge include the maker of 3D printed prosthetics Open Bionics, Blue Frog Robotics and their social robot Buddy, and Flyability with their Gimball drone for inspection.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
To be successful, SMEs will need to be productive and innovative. “There are relatively few robotic systems designed specifically for the SME market.” – Robotics MAR . The vision is to make robots that can safely operate near humans and are easy to program through intuitive interfaces. Ideally, the operator would show the robot a new object to manipulate, and then guide it through a series of actions by manually moving its arms, effectively teaching the robot like one might teach a coworker. This would allow companies to readily use their robots on different tasks, without needing a specialised programmer. These so-called co-bots, if cost-effective, could increase productivity and allow for new types of industry that rapidly personalise products to consumer needs or iterate on design. Danish company Universal Robots saw the potential in this market, and quickly grew to become one of the top companies producing co-bots. Universal Robots was sold last year for more than €350M.
The surge in robotics technology is not happening in isolation. Recent advances in the internet of things, and a push towards smart European cities, are leading to new ecosystems in which robotics will play an important role. The key is to integrate with these news areas, and build on recent advances in computation, and increasingly capable sensors and actuators.
Stay tuned for our next article; we’ll be demystifying the latest robotics technologies and looking at why robotics is still really difficult.
The ten-part series on European Robotics will be published every two weeks on the SPARC website and Robohub. Funding for the series was provided by RockEU – a Coordination and Support Action funded under FP7 by the European Commission, Grant Agreement Number 611247.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.BCG predicts the fastest growing segment in robotics will be those designed for “personal” uses like education, cleaning, and entertainment.
by Ekta Sahasi, Vice President at Konica Minolta Business Innovation Center and Greg Lok, Business Strategy Lead at Konica Minolta Business Innovation Center
After years of flying under the venture capital (VC) radar, the robotic industry is finally starting to see a remarkable growth in funding traction. In 2014, VC investments in robotics rose 36% to $341.3 million up from $250.7 million in 2013, according to Travis Deyle’s annual robotics review. [1] The spike in 2014 investments follows what Deyle believes was a “frothy” funding environment, influx of drone startups, and later-stage medical robots. As a whole, the robotic industry continues to be dominated by industrial and manufacturing products. While this will continue to be the most prominent application, BCG predicts the fastest growing segment in robotics will be those designed for “personal” uses like education, cleaning, and entertainment.[2]
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Source: svrobo.org
Although robotic VC funding is growing annually, these investments must be viewed in greater context. The increase in robotic funding follows the general venture trend of increasing investments in hardware startups, which have increased more than 30x from 2010-2014 (See Figure 1, Hardware Startups by Year).[3]
For hardware, theories on the increase in investments include strong hardware exits and the rise of crowd-funding platforms, such as Kickstarter and Indigogo, which lead to the $2.3 million backing of Jibo.[4]
While few robotics companies reach this level of crowd-funding success, successful campaigns appear to have a positive correlation to increased funding.[5] Additional investments from the corporate sphere and their associated high-publicity announcements have also served to increase awareness among general public, investors, and entrepreneurs that robotics is a growing and worthwhile industry.[6]
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Source: svrobo.org
While both hardware and robotic investments are growing each year, they still lag behind the percent of investments in less-risky segments of internet- specific (25% in 2014) and software companies (41% in 2014) according to PwC 2014 venture capital data.[7] In stark contrast to these high percentages, only .07% of the $48.3 billion VC funding went to robotics.
Comparing the hardware- based robotic companies to those in software and internet-services, the investments in the latter are less risky and have the ability to grow and scale quickly with less upfront investment. Although some investors are willing to take risks and bet on the future of robotics, the funding of millions of dollars pales in comparison to the billions being poured into other sectors.
With less than 1% of VC going into the robotics industry, it begs the question: Why are venture capitalists skittish when it comes to robots? It boils down to perceived risk. William Santana Li, CEO of Knightscope, observes that most VCs believe “Hardware is too hard.” It requires expensive investments that appear risky when you consider that many emerging startups run on the fuel of hungry, yet relatively inexperienced entrepreneurs. And those who do have experience are unlikely to have developed the expertise needed to build a sustainable and scalable manufacturing operation.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Source: svrobo.org
For entrepreneurs and visionaries who see the possibilities of robotics, the constant struggle to receive funding can discourage the development of disruptive robotic solutions. Ironically, the challenge of receiving VC backing can encourage the best and brightest to shy away from the funding struggle: Peter Thiel observes, “We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.” The perseverant founder William Santana continues to motivate entrepreneurs, “Tune out the naysayers who will just keep talking because building something is “too hard.” Ignore the noise, focus on your mission and deliver results.”
While hardware may be hard, there is a way to play it smart. The value of strategic investors and partners should not be underestimated. In what many consider to be an overly risky environment, strategics can provide the expertise needed to help accelerate robotics companies.
Strategics with strong legacies in hardware bring operations infrastructure, knowledge, and foresight to help emerging startups commercialize. Furthermore, these strategics can de-risk the most challenging components of starting a hardware company, including the servicing, deployment, design for servicing, maintenance, manufacturing, and distribution. With Konica Minolta Business Innovation Center (BIC) as a strategic partner, Steve Cousins, CEO of Savioke, notes that they “gain a strong services infrastructure, capabilities, global reach, and scale.” Having a strong strategic investor or partner allows the Savioke team to focus on putting more Relay robots into the world without having to worry about scaling to support their growing customer base.
Like any true partnership, the benefits flow both ways. Corporate strategics understand the necessity of staying innovative in today’s competitive market. At the Konica Minolta Business Innovation Center, “We are transforming Konica Minolta’s core business by focusing on industries that provide our customers the tools they need to stay ahead of the curve” says Ekta Sahasi, VP Konica Minolta BIC.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Source: svrobo.org
The desire to access these disruptive industries like robotics, offers a strong incentive to ensure the investment companies become best-in-class. Unlike some venture capitalist firms, corporate strategics are investing in products that align with both the strategy of their business and are poised to produce financial returns. By aligning the success of the emerging companies with the strategy of the business, corporate strategics are especially invested in the success of the emerging company.
There are many ways to connect with strategic investors. At Konica Minolta Business Innovation Center, we partner with emerging startups through investments, partnerships, co-development, and mentorships. We have invested in Knightscope, an autonomous crime-detecting robot that aims to reduce crime by empowering the community with data and security. Through our partnership with Savioke, an autonomous robot for the services industry, we have installed robots in hotels and created a service model to help scale.
We also co-develop with our robotic industry companies to integrate complementary technology from our platform. For instance, we are working to have Sigsense, a maintenance-detecting software, to integrate their product into robots in order to predict maintenance needs. Finally, we have worked with accelerators such as Plug and Play to identify and mentor the emerging robotic startups.
Konica Minolta is supporting the development of the robotic solutions that will transform the future. If you are an entrepreneur, investor, accelerator, or enthusiast, say hello and join our journey!
Konica Minolta’s Business Innovation Centers (BIC) are established in five major regions around the world as a core engine of business transformation. The BIC mission is to gain a deeper understanding of customers’ needs and deliver the greatest value to the world. BIC North America fosters a portfolio of solutions in the areas of robotics, healthcare, connected intelligent ecosystems, workplace and enterprise solutions. BIC manages the entire lifecycle of new business development from ideation to creation of actual business lines.
The rest of the Silicon Valley Robotics free report on service robotics is AVAILABLE HERE — or in instalments at Silicon Valley Robotics — featuring case studies and analysis from industry experts and investors.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.A plant-moving robot from Harvest Automation. Source: harvestai/YouTube
In a Boston Globe story by Scott Kirsner, it was revealed that Harvest Automation’s CEO has departed, as have 3/4 of the 30 employees that worked there in 2015. The company is attempting to sell its e-commerce bot and system technology to keep the company alive.
Harvest Automation started in 2009 with a goal of providing robotic solutions to businesses that employed large numbers of low-cost labor. They found a niche within agriculture in nurseries. Growers needed labor to rearrange pots regularly. So Harvest built a rugged little robot that works in swarms to pick up and transplant pots as required. It appeared to be successful with sales doubling in each of the last two years. Their initial clients were some of their initial investors – nursery owners around the U.S. who provided guidance and industry experience as well as funding.
But then John Kawola joined the company in 2012 as CEO and promptly began to develop another labor-saving robot which was to work in warehouses: the OmniVeyor.
Watch the video of how it works here:
Kawola reasoned that the agricultural market was “interesting but small.” The OmniVeyor was pre-marketed in 2015 and was scheduled to be launched in Spring 2016. Quoting from the Boston Globe article:
It was designed to transport a plastic totebox around a warehouse, so that workers in the aisles could simply pull an item from the shelf and drop it into the tote; then, the bot would go to the next aisle where it needed an item. At the end of the process, the bot would report to a packing station where all of the items in the order would be transferred to a box, sealed up, and sent off to the customer.
Unlike the ag robot group, the warehouse group didn’t have the range of experience offered by their nursery investors and the resulting system and robot were somewhat flawed. According to one distribution center (DC) owner who previewed Harvest’s new OmniVeyor material handling robot, the system required a platform 16″ off the ground upon which the OmniVeyor would slide totes. But warehouse space is at a premium and floor space is even more valuable. It was an unworkable solution. Innovation has to solve problems; not create them. Consequently, the DC owner wasn’t a buyer.
Nor, it seems, were any others. Let’s hope that Harvest Automation is able to find funding to keep its ag robot group going.
