Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 29.57
June 07, 2022
SoftBank Group has been a significant investor in collaborative and service robotics. Its SoftBank Robotics America Inc. unit today announced a strategic development and equity partnership with Autonomous Solutions Inc., expanding its interest from indoor robots to automated ground vehicles. As part of the agreement, San Francisco-based SoftBank Robotics America (SBRA) has acquired a minority stake in Petersboro, Utah-based Autonomous Solutions Inc. (ASI). The companies said their partnership “will expedite the development and deployment of a wide range of autonomous commercial service vehicles.” “We are very excited to work with ASI,” stated Brady Watkins, general manager of SoftBank Robotics America.…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 9.81
May 23, 2022
…special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) SVF Investment Corp. 3, a SoftBank unit, and plans to be publicly listed on Nasdaq. It filed an S-4 registration statement, a final proxy statement, and an SVF prospectus with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on May 9. Walmart to accelerate materials handling with robots Each week, approximately 220 million customers and members visit approximately 10,500 Walmart stores and clubs under 48 banners in 24 countries and e-commerce websites, said the retailer. With fiscal year 2021 revenue of $559 billion, Walmart employs 2.2 million associates worldwide. Symbotic said its automation plays a strategic role…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 7.83
May 03, 2022
…in Tokyo, SB Logistics, the e-commerce fulfillment arm of SoftBank, is working to make a lights-out facility a reality. “Our ultimate goal is a completely automated warehouse,” said Masashi Okabe, a project manager and production engineer at SoftBank Robotics, and a member of the team that designed the highly automated 600,000-sq.-ft. facility in Ichikawa City. Part of that vision includes the development of a facility where a limited number of people are primarily there for maintenance and supervision, not warehouse processes. They’re not there yet. When the facility first adopted automation, inbound receiving and outbound shipping were still manual. In…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 7.48
April 19, 2022
…to future with Hyundai Since acquiring Boston Dynamics from SoftBank last year, Hyundai Motor Group has expressed strong interest in commercializing products such as Stretch. What are Hyundai's expectations? “Most people in the Americas think of Hyundai as a car company, but in South Korea, it's a manufacturing company, a logistics company, and a construction company,” Blankespoor said. “They've got a huge number of applications where they're excited to get robots more involved. In terms of future products that have more of a Hyundai influence, stay tuned.” In the meantime, Boston Dynamics is working with customers to start collecting key…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 37.47
April 12, 2022
…Group today announced that it has agreed to acquire SoftBank Robotics Europe SAS from SoftBank Robotics Group Corp. The transaction will result in United Robotics Group becoming one of the leading service robot providers in Europe, said the companies. As part of United Robotics Group (URG), the former SoftBank Robotics Europe (SBRE) will revert to the name “Aldebaran,” which developed robots for academic and customer-service use. URG offers robots including Pepper and Nao, Boston Dynamics' Spot, and the current Rethink Robotics' Sawyer through a robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) model. “We are pleased to welcome SBRE with more than 180 exceptionally motivated robotics…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 32.12
March 21, 2022
…Motors Co. last week announced it is buying the SoftBank Vision Fund's stake in its Cruise self-driving car company for $2.1 billion. San Francisco-based Cruise makes electric, driverless vehicles such as the Origin shuttlebus. Last month, the company announced that SoftBank was going to invest an additional $1.35 billion because Cruise had started operating its fully autonomous vehicles. It has also begun offering self-driving car rides to the public in San Francisco, claiming to be the first company to do so. Now that GM has bought SoftBank Vision Fund's stake, it will give Cruise the $1.35 billion in SoftBank Vision…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 22.37
March 17, 2022
…company released the robot in 2020 in partnership with SoftBank Robotics Group. The AMR uses artifical intellgence and self-driving technology to help it navigate environments, according to Bear Robotics. Mobile waiter at your service The company said casinos, senior living center facilities, and corporate campuses have used its service robots. “Having started my own restaurant years ago, I learned firsthand just how hard things could get,” said John Ha, co-founder and CEO of Bear Robotics. “I thought there must be a way to automate some of these repetitive tasks without losing what makes a restaurant great. That’s why we created…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 15.06
February 23, 2022
…Safar Partners, Thomas H. Lee Partners (THL), and the SoftBank Vision Fund led RightHand's latest funding, which brings its valuation to $240 million. Tenzer said he expects the company make $10 million in revenue this year. Zebra Technologies, Epson, and Global Brain also join the Series C round, along with previous investors GV (Google Ventures), F-Prime Capital, Menlo Ventures, Matrix Partners and Future Shape. Menlo Ventures and Playground Global led previous rounds. “The RightHand Robotics piece-picking solution has demonstrated year after year that autonomous robots are vital to solving the challenges of organizations from retail to pharmacy,” said Arunas Chesonis,…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 10.57
February 14, 2022
…integrated the LIO sensors into the fingertips of a SoftBank Pepper humanoid robot. Sensors on the fingers of each hand can be positioned on a patient's chest to take electrocardiogram (ECG) and photoplethysmogram (PPG) readings. Blood pressure is monitored and estimated by combining the sensor data from each hand. Using predetermined algorithms, the signals from the paired sensors can generate a patient's systolic and diastolic blood pressure without using the traditional cuff-based digital sphygmomanometer. Kim's earlier work involved programming sensing robots to measure other human physiological signals, such as temperature, respiration rate, and those from an ECG, which monitors heart…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 38.69
February 02, 2022
Cruise LLC yesterday announced that the SoftBank Vision Fund will invest another $1.35 billion toward commercializing its autonomous vehicles. The General Motors Co. spinoff also said it has opened rides from its staff to the public in San Francisco. “The SoftBank Vision Fund initially invested $900 million in Cruise in 2018,” said Kyle Vogt, co-founder, chief technology officer, and interim CEO. “They agreed to invest an additional $1.35 billion when we started operating fully driverless cars. I’m pleased to announce we’ve officially hit that milestone!” Founded in 2013, Cruise has been developing self-driving vehicles such as the Origin shuttlebus. GM…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 10.51
January 30, 2022
…Hyundai Motor Group acquired the Waltham, Mass.-based company from SoftBank Group Corp. last year. Stretch is a “flexible, easily integrated solution that can work in any warehouse to increase the flow of goods and improve associate safety by taking over physically demanding tasks,” claimed Boston Dynamics. The mobile manipulator has a compact, omni-directional base and a custom-designed lightweight arm, as well as a suction gripper with sensing and controls to handle a variety of box types and sizes. Stretch also includes Boston Dynamics’ computer vision technology, which enables it to identify boxes without any pre-programming. The robot can autonomously work…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 12.96
December 28, 2021
…Jinrui led the two rounds of YouiBot's Series B financing. Other investors included IDG, Pine Venture, SIG, BlueRun Venture, SoftBank, and HAX. TAIHECAP was designated as the exclusive financial advisor. Previous investors included ZhenFund, C&I Capital, INNO, BOLE and XJTU 1896. YouiBot said it plans to focus on precision manufacturing and the energy industry by continuing its advances in production scenarios, planning algorithms, and robotics hardware. The company also said it will “expand its mature scenario experience into new scenes and further quicken the pace of overseas market expansion.”
