Bipedal humanoid mobile manipulation robot (MMR) provider Agility Robotics recently announced motion components provider Schaeffler Group has made a minority investment in the company. In addition to the investment, the companies have signed an agreement in which Schaeffler intends to purchase humanoid robots from Agility Robotics for use across the whole global Schaeffler manufacturing and warehouse network. We, at Schaeffler, will integrate this technology into our operations and see the potential to deploy a significant number of humanoids in our global network of 100 plants by 2030,” said Andreas Schick, Schaeffler AG COO. “We look forward to the collaboration with…
Flexible material handling automation systems provider Vecna Robotics recently announced it has brought on Karl Iagnemma as CEO and closed $14.5 million in additional funding from existing investors. Proceeds of the funding round are earmarked to accelerate technology and product enhancements, which Vecna said will help address the automation needs of operators in automotive, general manufacturing, high-volume warehousing. Vecna had previously closed a $100 million series C funding round and appointed Michael Helmbrecht as COO. Iagnemma brings CEO experience from nuTonomy, Motional Iagnemma is an entrepreneur and knowledgeable developer in the commercial robotics industry, with a career history that blends…
Autonomous mobile robot (AMR) software provider Brain Corp recently announced that its fleet of over 37,000 AMRs powered by the BrainOS AI-enabled Robotics Platform have now autonomously covered more than 250 billion square feet of space globally. To put this scale into perspective, 250 billion square feet is equivalent to covering the entire landmass of New York City almost 30 times, 4.34 million football fields, or 89 million tennis courts. In addition to the vast area covered, Brain Corp’s fleet also reached more than 19 million hours of autonomous operation - equal to over 2,100 years of continuous operation. “This…
Industrial camera designer and manufacturer LUCID Vision Labs, Inc. recently announced the launch of its new Triton2 EVS event-based 2.5GigE camera, featuring the IMX636 and IMX637 event-based vision sensors. The cameras were developed in collaboration with Sony and Prophesee. “We’ve established a very productive relationship with LUCID to enable the full potential of our event-based sensors in their high-performance machine vision systems,” said Luca Verre, Prophesee CEO and co-founder. “The Triton2 EVS camera showcases the exceptional performance, efficiency, and usability of our technology. We’re very proud of helping enable a new era of high-speed, low-latency vision solutions that significantly enhance…
Retail e-commerce distributor Amazon recently began delivering packages via drone to the West Valley of the Phoenix, Ariz. Metro Area. Customers who live near the same-day delivery site in Tolleson, Ariz. and purchase an eligible item weighing five pounds or less can have it delivered by drone in under an hour. Since starting its Prime Air last mile delivery service in 2022, Amazon has delivered thousands of items to customers in less than an hour. In 2023, the e-commerce distributor also began delivering prescription medications in partnership with Amazon Pharmacy to customers in College Station, Texas. Amazon said it had…
Warehouses, order fulfillment and distribution centers are filled with robotics and automation. From AMRs to robot arms and automated lift trucks, various technologies work alongside personnel in an attempt to make life easier for humans and meet business goals. In this podcast, we discuss the expanding role of robotics and automation in the warehouse, and how ongoing labor challenges affect the organizational thought process on what type(s) of automation to consider for various processes. Join an industry expert from Yale Lift Truck Technologies to discuss these topics and other talking points in this Robotics Applications Podcast episode, “Making the Case…
Software provider NVIDIA recently revealed new AI and simulation tools and workflows for robot developers, including humanoid developers, at the Conference for Robot Learning (CoRL) in Munich, Germany. The lineup includes the general availability of the NVIDIA Isaac Lab robot learning framework. These include six new humanoid robot learning workflows for Project Generalist Robot 00 Technology (GR00T) and new world-model development tools for video data curation and processing, including the NVIDIA Cosmos tokenizer and NVIDIA NeMo Curator for video processing. Open-source Isaac Lab can scale robot training NVIDIA Isaac Lab is an open-source robot learning framework built on NVIDIA Omniverse,…
Automation systems for person-to-goods picking provider Locus Robotics recently announced its autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) have picked four billion units across its global customer deployments. This latest achievement comes 28 weeks after reaching three billion picks, which Locus said underscores its rapid growth and expansion, along with the rapidly-increasing adoption of its AI-enabled automation systems for warehouse operations globally. “This is a truly momentous moment for everyone associated with Locus Robotics - from our global team of employees around the world to our expanding base of customers,” said Rick Faulk, Locus Robotics CEO. “Reaching the four billion milestone in record…
