In Episode 152 of The Robot Report Podcast, editors Steve Crowe and Mike Oitzman discuss the news of the week. Our featured guest on the show this week is Rajat Bhageria, founder and CEO of Chef Robotics.

Bhageria takes us through the inception of the company and how he has broken down the various workflows in the commercial kitchen. Chef Robotics is focused on food manufacturing, deploying automation to the tasks of filling ready-to-cook, prepared meals with individual food items.

The second feature on the show today is an interview hosted by Meaghan Ziemba, host of Mavens of Manufacturing and Joyce Sidopoulos, co-founder and chief of operations at MassRobotics. This interview occurred live at the 2024 Robotics Summit & Expo in Boston.

Ziemba and Sidopoulos discuss the Women in Robotics Breakfast at the Robotics Summit and the MassRobotics Jumpstart program. which supports local high school girls to discover a career in high tech and robotics. They also chat about how MassRobotics is supporting the regional robotics startup ecosystem.

Show timeline

• 10:02: News
• 23:04: Interview with Rajat Bhageria, founder and CEO of Chef Robotics
• 1:07:23: Interview by Meaghan Ziemba, host of Mavens of Manufacturing, and Joyce Sidopoulos, co-founder and chief of operations at MassRobotics

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In the news this week

1. 1. 1. Robotics investments top $466M in April 2024
         • Robotics investments reached at least $466 million in April 2024, the result of 36 funding rounds. The April investments figure lagged recent months and was the smallest amount since November 2023. Last month’s investment total was significantly less than the trailing 12-month average of $1.1 billion.
         • Collaborative Robotics’ $100 million Series B round was April’s largest investment. As its name implies, the California-based firm is developing collaborative robots and enabling software for their use. China’s Rokae, a provider of collaborative and industrial robots, secured $70 million in April.
         • As with previous months, companies located in the U.S. and China received the largest funding amounts, $239 million and $115 million, respectively. Companies based in the U.S. (14) and China (9) also received the majority of the round.
      2. Sonair sensor launch
         • The Norwegian-based sensor company decloaked this week to announce the availability of evaluation kits for its new ultrasonic sensor.
         • Sonair is attempting to disintermediate the safety lidar market with a new obstacle-detecting sensor.
      3. Tangram Vision creates lidar comparison tool
         • If you’re searching for a lidar sensor to add to your robot, Tangram Vision wants to make your evaluation process simpler. The startup, which is building software and hardware for robotic perception, launched an interactive tool called “Spinning LiDAR Visualizer” that lets users compare spinning lidar models.
         • Users can compare 28 sensors from leading manufacturers such as Hesai, Ouster, Quanergy, RoboSense, and Velodyne. The visualizer allows them to select one or two sensors to analyze and compare maximum range, range at 10% reflectivity, angular resolution, and field of view. You can click and drag for different viewpoints, embed the tool somewhere else, or even modify it on GitLab.