Heartland Robotics is a startup headquarted in Boston, one of the great robotics centers of the world. Heartland was founded by Rodney Brooks, a distinguished researcher from MIT, one of the most influential roboticists of the decade and co-founder of iRobot.
So with those credentials, we expect amazing things from Heartland and apparently, others do as well. The VC investing arm of Amazon's Jeff Bezos (who is also a technology maven of the first order, and according to all accounts, a very nice guy) just announced a $7 million series A investment in Heartland.
This is not only good news for Heartland but for American industry in general. Heartland's stated mission is to revitalize the american manufacturing sector with next-generation, flexible robots that collaborate with human workers.
Congratulations to Heartland Robotics, and we are looking forward some great new advances.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Willow Garage Ramping Up for Production
Willow Garage has been posting pictures of their facility re-build, preparing to begin production of their PR-2 jservice robot.
Here is the building being stripped out.
Here is a bit of production floor tooling.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Heartland, Rodney Brooks, and Manufacturing Robotics
Heartland Robotics is a startup headquarted in Boston, still in stealth mode. Their stated mission is to build next generation flexible manufacturing robots that will collaborate with human workers intelligently.
Video of Brooks giving speech about manfacturing robotics
Shown above: Rodney Brooks speech at Maker Fair.
This is a crucial mission. The US and other high-wage nations must learn how to compete with workers who make 1/20th the houly wage. The only way to do this is to multiply the efforts of blue-collar workers, in essence, to make them 20 times as effective.
This can no longer be done with only with the high end machinery and mass production lines that American manufacturers have employed so successfully for so long. The markets have changed, with faster product cycles and shorter runs making such "big automation" uneconomical. We simply cannot continue with large up-front costs and long cycle times. The US manufacturing sector needs to change over to much more flexible automation that can turn on a dime and change rapidly.
Chinese manufacturers can undercut our costs because they don't use automated tooling on that scale. They just hire 1000 hard working low-wage workers, give them simpler tooling, and start them working. The human worker is still the most flexible "automation" in the world. If you can get human workers cheap, and deploy them in large numbers, you can drope prices rapidly.
The solution for the US is to leverage our better training and better technology. We need a massive upgrade of the tools provided to our workers. Those new tools should include flexible collaborative manufacturing robots.
Don't think of these robots as replacements for human workers. Think of them as replacements for the older, less flexible tooling.
In fact, it's very likely that the net effect on total manufacturing employment will be neutral. Net jobs will be steady, or will increase, as manufacturing returns to the US from overseas.
Heartland is focused on manufacturing, but we classify their robots as service robots, and look forward to covering them here.
Video of Brooks giving speech about manfacturing robotics
Shown above: Rodney Brooks speech at Maker Fair.
This is a crucial mission. The US and other high-wage nations must learn how to compete with workers who make 1/20th the houly wage. The only way to do this is to multiply the efforts of blue-collar workers, in essence, to make them 20 times as effective.
This can no longer be done with only with the high end machinery and mass production lines that American manufacturers have employed so successfully for so long. The markets have changed, with faster product cycles and shorter runs making such "big automation" uneconomical. We simply cannot continue with large up-front costs and long cycle times. The US manufacturing sector needs to change over to much more flexible automation that can turn on a dime and change rapidly.
Chinese manufacturers can undercut our costs because they don't use automated tooling on that scale. They just hire 1000 hard working low-wage workers, give them simpler tooling, and start them working. The human worker is still the most flexible "automation" in the world. If you can get human workers cheap, and deploy them in large numbers, you can drope prices rapidly.
The solution for the US is to leverage our better training and better technology. We need a massive upgrade of the tools provided to our workers. Those new tools should include flexible collaborative manufacturing robots.
Don't think of these robots as replacements for human workers. Think of them as replacements for the older, less flexible tooling.
In fact, it's very likely that the net effect on total manufacturing employment will be neutral. Net jobs will be steady, or will increase, as manufacturing returns to the US from overseas.
Heartland is focused on manufacturing, but we classify their robots as service robots, and look forward to covering them here.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Willow Garage Milestone 2
Willow Garage PR-2 robot, in my estimation the most technologically sophisticated service robot (semi-humanoid) in the world, demonstrated it's stuff recently by navigating around a room and plugging itself into a wall plug.
Amazing!
Amazing!
Monday, May 25, 2009
Sunday, April 26, 2009
SME Coffee Break: Robots for Small Businesses
Referred by Frank at The Robot Report
Here is a fine video that describes an easy to program, easy to use industrial arm. Not quite the same as service robots, but it has some elements that are applicable to service robots.
http://www.smerobot.org/download/#video
"Tom and Michael, two stressed workers of an SME, dream of a robot helping them in their daily routine. One idea inspires the next ... until they come up to novel work environments and new and different types of robots, which will be explored in the project."
Here is a fine video that describes an easy to program, easy to use industrial arm. Not quite the same as service robots, but it has some elements that are applicable to service robots.
http://www.smerobot.org/download/#video
"Tom and Michael, two stressed workers of an SME, dream of a robot helping them in their daily routine. One idea inspires the next ... until they come up to novel work environments and new and different types of robots, which will be explored in the project."
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Race is On: Korea's $750 Million to Become Robotics Leader
From TMC Net:
SEOUL, Apr 18, 2009 (Asia Pulse Data Source via COMTEX) -- The government will spend 1 trillion won (US$750 million) on research and development in the robot sector over the next five years in an effort to develop the local industry into the world's top three, officials said Friday.
SEOUL, Apr 18, 2009 (Asia Pulse Data Source via COMTEX) -- The government will spend 1 trillion won (US$750 million) on research and development in the robot sector over the next five years in an effort to develop the local industry into the world's top three, officials said Friday.
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