The group’s board, as of November 2023, from left to right, back row: Dr. Sue Keay (chair), Brenton Cunningham, Christian Ruberg, Tim Bradley, Dr. Nathan Kirchner; front row: Dr. John Vial, Tamanna Monem, Kathie van Vugt, Nicci Rossouw, Angus Robinson. Source: Robotics Australia Group

The robotics industry in Australia stands at the precipice of a transformative era, driven by a shared vision of sustainability and innovation. At the forefront of this movement is the Robotics Australia Group, an organization committed to nurturing a comprehensive robotics ecosystem.

From companies developing cutting-edge robotic technologies to educational institutions cultivating future talent, the group supports all facets of this burgeoning industry. Its mission aligns with the broader national objectives, as recently underscored by the Australian government’s National Robotics Strategy.

National Robotics Strategy points the way to innovation

Ed Husic, MP and the minister for industry and science, recently announced the National Robotics Strategy. It marks a significant milestone for the Australian robotics sector, said the Robotics Australia Group.

“The strategy not only highlights the current achievements, but also lays a robust foundation for future developments,” stated Dr. Nathan Kirchner, founding director of the group. “It is a call to industry stakeholders to collaborate and drive forward this ambitious vision.” 

This strategy aims to accelerate the adoption of robotics and automation technologies across various industries, a move that is integral to the broader vision of a “Future Made in Australia.” The strategy is imbued with optimism, promising substantial advancements and positioning Australia as a leader in robotics innovation on the global stage.

Minister Husic’s declaration signaled the Australian government’s commitment to harnessing the potential of robotics to address the country’s unique challenges.

Some examples of the world-leading field robotics delivered by group members. Source: Robotics Australia Group

Minister recognizes Robotics Australia contributions

The group said its contributions have been instrumental in shaping the current landscape of the Australian robotics industry. During his announcement of the National Robotics Strategy, Husic acknowledged its sustained efforts, active participation in the development of the strategy, the contributions made through publishing Australian Robotic Roadmaps, and continued advocacy.

“We have deep pockets of robotics excellence in Australia, we will become greatly more competitive on the world stage by joining them together,” said Kirchner. “The National Robotics Strategy is a significant step towards that. I am very proud that the underpinning groundwork of the Robotics Australia Group has been recognized.”

The organization has worked to support various stakeholders within the ecosystem. By fostering collaborations, facilitating research and development, and promoting educational initiatives, it said it has created a fertile ground for the robotics industry to thrive. The group added that it is working to ensure that the benefits of robotics and automation are accessible to a broad range of industries and applications.

Robotics provides Australia a strategic advantage

”We have overcome the core challenges of a very large land and sparsely populated country in order to deliver a number of notable outcomes,” said Kirchner. “Nevertheless, through doing so, we have developed a significant strategic advantage in the field hard robotics” 

Australia’s geographical and demographic characteristics make it an ideal candidate for pioneering advanced robotics, asserted the group. The country’s vast landmass, coupled with a relatively small and dispersed population, creates a unique set of challenges that robotics can effectively address. Remote areas often require complex tasks to be completed, and robots can significantly enhance efficiency and safety in these environments.

Moreover, Australia boasts a remarkable depth of local talent and expertise in both hardware and software aspects of robotics, said the organization.

Industries such as mining, ports, transport and logistics, construction, agriculture, and defense have long benefited from Australia’s field-hardened robotics intellectual property, the group added. This robust foundation of expertise and innovation positions Australia to leverage robotics in solving critical problems and improving operational efficiencies across these sectors, it said.

One of the cutting-edge manufacturing installations developed by Applied Robotics, a group member. Source: Robotics Australia Group

Sector celebrates wins and looks ahead

“The announcement of the National Robotics Strategy is an exciting and commendable first step,” said the group. “However, it is essential to recognize that this is merely the beginning. The path to a fully realized, sustainable robotics industry in Australia requires continued effort and focus. While we celebrate this significant achievement, it is crucial to remain vigilant and committed to solidifying these initial steps to ensure long-term progress.”

The future of robotics in Australia holds immense potential, it noted. By using the momentum generated by the National Robotics Strategy, the nation’s industry can aspire to new heights on the global stage. This requires a concerted effort from all stakeholders to foster an environment conducive to innovation, collaboration, and international exchange, the group said.

“With the National Robotics Strategy as a guiding framework, Australia is poised to become a global leader in robotics and automation,” said Kirchner.

This vision can only be realized through collective effort and a strategic approach to international collaboration. By establishing a bi-directional conduit for deep commercial exchange in robotics and AI, Australia can position itself at the forefront of technological innovation.

The future success of the robotics industry hinges on the ability to integrate advanced technologies into practical applications that address real-world challenges. The group said that it and other industry stakeholders must continue to advocate for policies and initiatives that support research, development, and the commercialization of robotics technologies.

“The commitment of the Robotics Australia Group to building a sustainable robotics industry in Australia is both inspiring and crucial,” Kirchner said. “Their efforts, coupled with the strategic direction provided by the National Robotics Strategy, pave the way for a future where robotics and automation play a central role in addressing the nation’s unique challenges. By celebrating current achievements and maintaining a steadfast focus on future goals, Australia can achieve remarkable advancements in the robotics industry.”

In this journey, it is essential to remain proactive, collaborative, and visionary. With a collective effort, the vision of a “Future Made in Australia” powered by advanced robotics is not just a dream, but also an imminent reality. The group is currently spearheading the production of the third edition of the Robotics Roadmap for Australia, scheduled for release in 2025.

“Together, we can propel Australia to new heights of innovation and global leadership in the robotics sector,” said the group.

About the author

Dr. Nathan G.E. Kirchner is a serial startup founder and advisor, corporate ventures advisor, professor, and founding director of a peak body. He has been recognized as one of “Australia’s Most Innovative” by Engineers Australia and one of the “Top Ten Young Scientists” by Popular Science magazine.

With over 25 years in industry and academia, Kirchner has founded and led several robotics-AI startups, and he serves as a founding director of the Robotics Australia Group. Kirchner is also a venture partner at a leading hardware-first venture capital firm.

He has held prestigious positions such as head of robotics at a major construction company and at Stanford University, the University of Technology Sydney, and Ohio State University.

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Neya offers autonomy, mission planning, and open architecture for uncrewed ground vehicles. | Source: Neya Systems

Neya Systems yesterday announced that it is partnering with the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International, or AUVSI. The partners said they plan to develop a cybersecurity and supply chain framework and certification program for uncrewed ground vehicles (UGVs). 

AUVSI and Neya Systems said they have observed a growing need for standardized evaluation and certification of UGVs. The goal of the collaboration is to establish comprehensive standards and testing protocols to enhance the security, safety, performance, and reliability of uncrewed and autonomous ground vehicles and robots.

The framework and voluntary certification program will focus on enhancing the protection, mitigation, recovery, and adaptability of AGVs, said the organizations. 

“We are excited to announce the development of this cybersecurity certification program for UGVs,” stated Kurt Bruck, vice president at Neya Systems. “This initiative represents a significant step forward in our efforts to establish an industry standard for protecting UGVs from unauthorized access. Our partnership with AUVSI will enable us to foster innovation and trust within the industry as a whole, ultimately enhancing the safety and reliability of these autonomous systems.”

Neya Systems has cybersecurity, simulation expertise

Warrendale, Pa.-based Neya Systems develops and integrates advanced, vehicle-agnostic, off-road, and airborne autonomy. The subsidiary of Applied Research Associates is a 2024 RBR50 Robotics Innovation Award winner for its cyber autonomy initiative.

In March, Neya said it is working with the Embodied AI Foundation to update the CARLA open-source simulator for autonomous driving research to Unreal Engine 5.

Neya Systems said will be bringing its expertise in applying the U.S. Department of Defense’s (DoD) Zero Trust cybersecurity principles to its autonomy software to the partnership.

Neya has worked with the U.S. Army to turn the Palletized Load System into an optionally crewed, autonomous vehicle. Source: Neya Systems

AUVSI brings complementary experience

Arlington, Va.-based AUVSI plans to share the industry expertise of members in its Cyber Working Group and Ground Advocacy Committee. 

The nonprofit organization is dedicated to the advancement of uncrewed systems and robotics. It represents corporate, government, and academic professionals from more than 60 countries. AUVSI said its members work in defense, civil, and commercial markets. 

AUVSI’s Cyber Working Group previously advised on the development of AVUSI’s Green UAS Frameworks and certification. It said this is the only verification method besides Blue UAS that the DoD’s Defense Innovation Unit has approved as confirming compliance with National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) requirements for drones. 

“The need for standards and certifications for uncrewed systems continues to grow alongside the development and integration of uncrewed and autonomous vehicles and robotics,” noted Casie Ocaña, director of trusted programs at AUVSI. “In the ground domain, AUVSI is looking to leverage our Trusted Cyber framework so that we can offer a solution to verify and support compliance among ground vehicle and robotics companies – which will further advance the safe and reliable future of these technologies.”

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Joby Aviation says it hopes to eventually use Xwing technology for fully autonomous operations. | Source: Joby Aviation

Joby Aviation Inc. this week announced that it is acquiring the autonomy division of Xwing Inc. The acquisition will cover all of Xwing’s existing automation and autonomy technology activities and was paid for with Joby shares. The companies did not disclose the terms of the deal. 

Founded in 2016, Xwing has operated autonomous aircraft since 2020 using its Superpilot software. Developed in-house, the software enables safe, uncrewed operations, supervised from the ground, said the San Francisco-based company. Xwing claimed it offers “fully autonomous gate-to-gate flight technology.”

The company said it has completed 250 fully autonomous flights and more than 500 auto-landings to date. Last year, it received an official project designation for the certification of a large unmanned aerial system (UAS) from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

“Xwing’s goal of connecting communities with clean and affordable autonomous flight aligns closely with Joby’s long-term vision,” stated Maxime Gariel, co-founder, president, and chief technical officer of Xwing.

“For the past seven years, our team has broken barriers to advance aviation autonomy,” she added. “Now, as we join forces with the leading electric air-taxi developer, I can’t imagine a better home for the Xwing team to realize our shared vision.”

Pilot assist to come before fully autonomous flights

Joby Aviation is developing electric air taxis for commercial passenger services. The Santa Cruz, Calif.-based company said its acquisition of Xwing will help it be a leader in aviation autonomy and will build on its 2021 acquisition of high-performance radar developer Inras GmbH.

Founded in 2009, Joby said that Xwing’s expertise in perception technology, systems integration, and certification will benefit both near-term piloted operations as well as fully autonomous operations sometime in the future.

“The aircraft we are certifying will have a fully-qualified pilot on board, but we recognize that a future generation of autonomous aircraft will play an important part in unlocking our vision of making clean and affordable aerial mobility as accessible as possible,” said JoeBen Bevirt, founder and CEO of Joby.

“The exceptionally talented Xwing team has not only made unparalleled progress on the development and certification of vision systems, sensor fusion, and decision-making autonomous technologies, but they’ve also successfully demonstrated the real-life application of their technology, flying hundreds of fully autonomous flights in the national airspace,” he said.

Xwing tech to enable Joby to deliver on DoD contracts

Joby added that Xwing’s staff and technology will help accelerate its execution of existing contract deliverables with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and expand the potential for more contracts.

Xwing’s engineers, researchers, and technologists will help Joby focus on its automation and autonomy roadmap. They will also offer increased opportunities to partner with the DoD on technology development, said Joby.

Xwing’s autonomous flights were completed using a Cessna 208B Grand Caravan aircraft. They allowed the team to focus on areas such as vision system processing, detect-and-avoid algorithms, decision making, and ground control stations, said Joby. The aircraft also supported remote operations, the integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning, and mission management (including trajectory planning and real-time updates.

The U.S. Air Force gave Xwing a Military Flight Release earlier this year. The company’s aircraft participated in the Air Force’s Agile Flag 24-1 Joint Force exercise.

During this exercise, Xwing’s aircraft completed daily flights, covering around 2,800 miles and landing at eight public and military airports. The company also demonstrated its ability to integrate autonomous aircrafts into the national airspace system. 

“Autonomous systems are increasingly prolific in the private sector and bring potentially game-changing advantages to the Air Force as well,” said Col. Elliott Leigh, AFWERX director and chief commercialization officer for the Department of the Air Force. “We created Autonomy Prime to keep up with this shift and to stay engaged as a partner while this technology evolves, so that we can adapt and evolve along with the private sector, maintaining our competitive advantage.”

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Cover of the 2024 U.S. robotics roadmap. Source: UC San Diego

Unlike China, Germany, or Japan, the U.S. doesn’t have a centralized industrial policy. The U.S. has a culture that uniquely encourages innovation, but a lack of strong coordination among academia, government, and industry affects the development and deployment of technologies such as robotics, according to the 2024 edition of “A Roadmap for U.S. Robotics: Robotics for a Better Tomorrow.”

The quadrennial set of recommendations is produced and sponsored by institutions led by the University of California, San Diego. The authors sent the latest edition to presidential campaigns, the AI Caucus in Congress, and the investment community, noted Henrik I . Christensen, main editor of the roadmap.

Henrik Christensen, UC San Diego

Christensen is the Qualcomm Chancellor’s Chair of Robot Systems and a distinguished professor of computer science at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at UC San Diego. He is also the director of the Contextual Robotics Institute, the Cognitive Robotics Laboratory, and the Autonomous Vehicle Laboratory.

In addition, Christensen is a serial entrepreneur, co-founding companies including Robust.AI. He is also an investor through firms such as ROBO Global, Calibrate Ventures, Interwoven, and Spring Mountain Capital.

The Robot Report spoke with Christensen about the latest “Roadmap for U.S. Robotics.”

Robotics roadmap gives a mixed review

How does this year’s roadmap compare with its predecessors?

Christensen: We’ve been doing this since 2009 and have aligned it to the federal elections. We did do a midterm report in 2022, and the current report card is mixed.

For instance, we’ve seen investments in laboratory automation and anticipated the workforce shortage because of demographics and changes in immigration policies. The COVID-19 pandemic also accelerated interest in e-commerce, supply chain automation, and eldercare.

The government support has been mixed. The National Robotics Initiative has sunset, and there have been no meetings of the Congressional Caucus on Robotics since 2019. Recently, we did have a robot showcase with the Congressional Caucus for AI.

With all of the recent attention on artificial intelligence, how does that help or hurt robotics?

Christensen: Some of the staffers of the AI caucus used to go to robotics caucus meetings. The AI initiative created about six years ago rolled up robotics, but in the end without any new funding for robotics.

Robotics, in many respects, is where AI meets reality. With the workforce shortage, there is a dire need for new robot technology to ensure growth of the U.S. economy.

We’ve heard that reshoring production is part of the answer, but it’s not clear that there must be a corresponding investment in R&D to make it happen. Without a National Robotics Initiative, there’s also no interagency coordination.

CMU co-hosted a Senate Robotics Showcase and Demo Day. Graduate student Richard Desatnik demonstrated a glove that remotely operated a soft robot on table. Source: Carnegie Mellon University

Christensen calls for more federal coordination

Between corporations, academic departments, and agencies such as DARPA and NASA, isn’t there already investment in robotics research and development?

Christensen: Multiple agencies sponsor robotics, in particular in the defense sector. The foundational research is mainly sponsored by the National Science Foundation, and the programs come across uncoordinated.

The roadmap isn’t asking for more money for robotics R&D; it’s recommending that available programs be better coordinated and directed toward more widespread industrial and commercial use.

While venture capital has been harder to get in the past few years, how would you describe the U.S. startup climate?

Christensen: We’re seeing a lot of excitement in robotics, with companies like Figure AI. While resources have gone into fundamental research, we need an full applications pipeline and grounded use cases.

Right now, most VCs are conservative, and interest rates have made it harder to get money. Last year, U.S. industrial automation was down 30%, which has been a challenge for robotics.

Why do you think that happened?

Christensen: It was a combination of factors, including COVID. Companies over-invested based on assumptions but then couldn’t invest in infrastructure. Investment in facilities is limited until we get better interest rates.

The latest robotics roadmap said both automation and employment lead to economic growth, as shown by data from the International Federation of Robotics and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Click here to enlarge. Source: “A Roadmap for U.S. Robotics”

The U.S. can regain robotics leadership

When do you think that might turn around? What needs to happen?

Christensen: In the second half of the year, robotics could pick up quickly. More things, like semiconductors, are moving back to the U.S., and manufacturing and warehousing are short by millions of workers.

Reshoring hasn’t happened at scale, and there’s not enough R&D, but the U.S. also needs to retrain its workforce. There are a few trade schools with a robotics focus, and we need the federal government to assist in emphasizing the need for retraining to allow more reshoring.

What other enabling factors are needed in Washington?

Christensen: The OSTP [White House Office of Science and Technology] had limited staffing in the previous administration, and we can’t afford another two years of that. We need to hold Washington accountable, and the U.S. industrial sector needs agility.

The robotics community has a big challenge to educate people about the state of the industry. Americans think we’re better than we actually are. We’re not in the top five automotive producers; it’s actually China, Japan, Germany, South Korea, and India. No major industrial robotics supplier is based in the U.S.

When we started these roadmaps, the U.S. was in the top four in industrial robot consumption and a leader in service robotics. Now, it’s no longer in the top 10.

The future for iRobot, the only U.S. household name in robotics, isn’t pretty after its deal fell through with Amazon, at least partly because of antitrust scrutiny. We need to assist our companies to remain competitive.

How might the U.S. get its act together with regard to robotics policy? Australia just launched its own National Robotics Strategy.

Christensen: We shouldn’t let robotics go. I left Denmark about 30 years ago, and the robotics cluster there started after Maersk moved its shipyard to South Korea. The city of Odense and local universities, with national government support, all invested in an ecosystem that led to the formation of Universal Robots and Mobile Industrial Robots. Today, Odense is the capital of robotics in Europe.

Recently, the Port of Odense launched a robotics center for large structures. It continues to grow its ecosystem. It shows why it’s worth it for nations to think strategically about robotics.

We’re in talks to revitalize the Congressional Robotics Caucus and with Robust.AI. We can also show how the advances in AI can help grow robotics.

Manufacturing job openings currently exceed unemployment rates. Source: BLS.gov

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Stratom creates unmanned ground systems that move material in both controlled settings and expeditionary environments. | Source: Stratom

Stratom Inc. today announced that it is developing a “unique, small-form-factor material handling system.” It said its latest robot will be able to lift, load, unload, and transport palletized 463L tactical cargo across various operating environments and terrains.

The Louisville, Colo.-based company is participating in a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project with the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) and SOFWERX Inc.

The SBIR program funds a diverse portfolio of startups and small businesses across technology areas and markets. Its aim is to stimulate technological innovation, meet federal research and development needs, and increase commercialization. 

“Building upon our prior expertise and knowledge in expeditionary robotic material handling, we’re helping define the appropriate tradeoffs of size, weight, capability and price to ensure our design is a strong fit for this application,” stated Jesse Weifenbach, lead vehicle systems engineer at Stratom.

“Integrating multiple proven technologies into a simplified, refined solution that streamlines USSOCOM and Air Force cargo operations and enhances warfighter safety, our innovative material-handling system will be lighter weight than traditional equipment, much quicker and efficient to deploy, and safer when unloading in undeveloped locations,” he added. “These unique capabilities enhance cargo operations while reducing fuel waste and minimizing cycle times for military personnel.”

“We have real-life integration experience, expanding from military deployments of rapid refueling and offroad autonomy,” Zachary Savit, senior manager for business development at Stratom, told The Robot Report.

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New vehicle to be compact but powerful

Stratom is building a compact, remotely operated vehicle that will weigh less than 10,000 lb. (4,535.9 kg) and be airworthy. The company said the system will occupy just one pallet position while performing all cargo loading and unloading tasks for full-size, fully loaded 463L pallets in a variety of challenging conditions and locations. 

“Without proper material handling equipment, alternate methods of combat cargo offloading consume significant time and are very labor-intensive while posing serious risks to personnel, materials, and the aircraft,” explained Mark Gordon, president and CEO of Stratom. “Plus, the current equipment used can weigh up to three times its payload capacity and occupies precious space within an aircraft.”

“The military is transitioning toward more agile combat employment in expeditionary environments and across large geographical footprints,” he said. “Consequently, the need for inexpensive, lightweight and flight-ready material-handling equipment that is immediately operational upon landing is required as assets are distributed across a greater range of isolated locations without sufficient infrastructure.”

Stratom builds on prior experience

Stratom has developed several autonomous ground vehicles and robotic systems for logistics and operational applications. Most recently, the company updated its Autonomous Pallet Loader (APL) in support of the U.S. Marine Corps. 

The APL is a flexible, autonomous forklift that Stratom designed to transport heavy and bulky cargo across various terrains for both military and commercial use. The company said it is focused on maturing the integration of its Summit off-road autonomy architecture onto the APL.

Summit is a highly modular platform that enables customization for various container-loading applications. Stratom said this includes full automation of cargo operations for military aircraft.

Stratom has also designed the eXpeditionary Robotic Platform (XRP). This is an autonomous vehicle capable of driving in and out of an MV-22 Osprey aircraft while carrying more than 2,400 lb. (1,088.6 kg) of supplies. 

On the other hand, Stratom’s eXpeditionary Robotic-Field Artillery Autonomous Resupply (XR-FAAR) can deliver ammunition and supplies to weapons systems. 

Finally, SALT is Stratom’s small agile lift truck. The company said it aims to streamline Air Force aerial stores and munition-loading operations with the systems, increasing safety and enhancing adaptability.

“We’ve gotten a lot of feedback from recent trade shows, and we don’t yet know what other problems our products can solve,” said Savit. “We’re also looking at how our vehicles might fit in closed fleets, such as in mines.” 

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Robots and drones need “common sense” to navigate dynamic environments, according to XTEND. The company this month said it has raised $40 million in Series B funding to further develop its proprietary XOS operating system. It also plans to increase global sales of its own drones and robots.

“Robots and drones promise to transform everything from factories to our homes,” stated Aviv Shapira, co-founder and CEO of XTEND. “However, a significant hurdle remains — equipping them with the common-sense abilities to deal with the unpredictable nature of real-world situations, understand their surroundings, and make decisions based on that information.”

“XOS uses AI to enable robots to learn from data and experience, training them to identify objects, navigate complex environments, and interact with humans safely,” he explained. “We are unlocking the true potential of robotics in complex scenarios, including first response, search and rescue, logistics, critical infrastructure inspection, defense, and security.”

XTEND, which has offices in Washington, D.C.; Crestview, Fla.; and Singapore, said mission is to deliver a unified operating system for applications that include both ground-based mobile robots and aerial drones.  The company claimed that its systems can enhance operator abilities, reduce the need for physical confrontation, and minimize casualties and injuries.

XOS combines human, AI strengths

XOS combines human guidance and autonomous machines to allow operators to perform complex remote missions in any environment with minimal training, according to XTEND. The company asserted that it is developing seamless collaboration between humans and artificial intelligence, playing to the strengths of each.

“Our XOS operating system is based on ‘practical human-supervised autonomy,’ which empowers drones and robots to handle specific tasks autonomously – entering buildings, scanning floors, or even pursuing suspects,” explained Shapira. “However, crucially, it allows the common-sense decisions – like judging situations or adapting to unforeseen circumstances – to remain in the hands of human supervisors.”

“This human-machine teaming allows our robots to work alongside supervisors, who can manage dozens of robots simultaneously, and learn from that experience,” he added. “That is why we believe that XOS will become the operating system of choice for anyone looking to maximize their robotic systems’ potential while decreasing the risks posed to their teams’ lives or concerns around lack of human oversight.”

XTEND last year acquired drone inspection company Performance Rotors to boost its ability to offer human-guided, remote interactive operations in a range of inspection scenarios and grow its global business. It noted that its product line includes a variety of drones to support varied use cases.

For commercial applications, XTEND drones can perform inspection tasks with human supervision. For defense-related applications, drones and quadrupeds can work alongside people to support missions in the field and help to extend the senses of troops in tactical situations.

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XTEND works with third-party devices, in unexpected scenarios

There are hundreds of operational deployments of XTEND’s drone and robotics systems around the world, according to the company. XOS can control a wide range of platforms, including third-party systems, it said.

The operating system can complement existing technology, or it can be part of new systems built from the ground up, said XTEND. In addition, XOS’s open architecture allows for the hosting of applications developed by third parties.

“Unlike self-driving cars, which operate in a world with mostly known rules and scenarios, XTEND specializes in enabling operations in ‘hypervariable’ environments,” said Matteo Shapira, co-founder and CXO of XTEND. “Take a last-mile delivery robot. It can navigate autonomously indoors and outdoors but might need human help finding an office building entrance or understanding floor layouts to reach the elevator or stairway.”

“These environments present limitless situations with the potential for the unexpected, requiring human-level decision-making skills specific to each profession,” he said. “XTEND’s core technology, XOS, is built around this human-machine partnership. We are continually adding new ‘AI skills’ to our system, and those skills will allow robots to handle a growing portion of missions and tasks, freeing up human supervisors to manage more missions simultaneously, at scale.”

Investors, users look to the future of autonomy

Chartered Group led XTEND’s Series B round, with additional investors including Clal-Tech. Chartered Group said it is a global private equity firm supporting “a greener and more digitalized world.”

“We believe that the companies bringing the value of AI to massive and complex industries, such as robotics and drone operations, will be the tech giants of the 21st century,” said Eyal Agmoni, founder and chairman of Chartered Group. “Having observed XTEND’s remarkable achievements thus far, we truly believe in the company’s potential to become the world leader in robotics and drone operations, and AI.”

The U.S. Department of Defense Special Forces and Israel’s Ministry of Defense Tier-1 units have chosen XTEND for multiple multi-million-dollar programs. The company said it is already developing and delivering systems for operational evaluation.

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Anzu is offering inspection drones for the U.S. market. Source: Anzu Robotics

While drones from SZ DKI Technology Co. arguably dominate the U.S. market for enterprise drone applications, Anzu Robotics LLC is preparing to serve operators that might be affected by a ban on the Chinese-made systems.

The DJI Matrice and DJI Mavic products both offer a wide range of sensor and payload options suitable for use in applications such as inspection, mapping, surveying, and search and rescue operations. In the past year, DJI has increasingly come under criticism because it is a Chinese state-owned business, and many DJI drones are used to inspect and map critical U.S. infrastructure.

New legislation approved by the House Energy and Commerce Committee on March 20 is part of ongoing efforts by federal and state governments to limit the usage of DJI drones in the U.S. There was unanimous agreement among the committee members, as both Republicans and Democrats supported the proposed restrictions, citing national security concerns.

The bills, the Countering CCP Drones Act and the Foreign Adversary Communications Transparency Act (download PDFs), are now under consideration in the full U.S. House.

“Congress must use every tool at our disposal to stop communist China’s monopolistic control over the [U.S.] drone market,” stated Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-New York), the primary sponsor of the bills cleared by the committee.

However, many industry insiders are skeptical of the proposed DJI drone ban, due in part to the heavy lobbying of U.S.-based uncrewed aerial systems (UAS) manufacturers such as Skydio that would like to displace DJI.

Such companies hope to gain more market share within the U.S. market, as autonomous commercial drone applications grow in popularity. In August, 2023, Skydio ended all sales of its drones to consumers to focus 100% on the enterprise market.

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What’s the possible impact of a U.S. ban on DJI drones?

A lot of commercial drone operators, including fire departments and other public-safety groups, have said that the Countering CCP Drones bill would make it illegal for DJI drones to use U.S. communications infrastructure. This isn’t a complete ban, but it would make DJI drones useless in the U.S., especially for any business, state, or local government that might use a DJI drone, they said.

The potential approval of the legislation has sent the commercial drone industry into a panic, especially search-and-rescue teams that have heavily invested in DJI drones for their operations.

Enter Austin, Texas-based Anzu Robotics.

The company recently announced its entrance into the U.S. drone market and the launch of its new Raptor and Raptor T enterprise drones. CEO Randall Warnas is a veteran in the drone industry, having worked at Autel and FLiR Systems earlier in his career.

Warnas said he recognized the potential impact of a DJI ban in the U.S. and saw an opportunity to fill a real need in the industry.

Using his network, Warnas reached a licensing deal with DJI to manufacture the Raptor drones in Malaysia, using the core design and internal chipset of the DJI Mavic 3 platform. He could then import and sell the drones in the U.S. under the Anzu Robotics brand.

The Mavic 3 Enterprise series drones are not the latest generation of drones from DJI — that would be the Mavic 3 Pro — but the platform is proven and liked by many industry professionals today. It is one of the most successful generations of DJI drones to date, according to Warnas.

The Raptor drone and remote controller in their signature green color. | Credit: Anzu Robotics

Aloft software meets country of origin mandate

On the software side, Warnas signed a deal with U.S.-based Aloft AI (formerly Kittyhawk) to provide the flight control software on the controller. The Aloft software source effectively meets the requirements for U.S.-based ownership and control of flight data as defined in the Countering CCP Drones bill. By manufacturing drones in Malaysia, Anzu Robotics meets the requirements for country of origin.

“At Aloft, we recognize that our customers have diverse operational needs which demand that everything they fly must be securely and compliantly integrated into the airspace,” said Jon Hegranes, founder and CEO of Aloft. “Our collaboration with Anzu Robotics on the Raptor series extends our commitment to providing versatile, cutting-edge drone solutions that ensure top-tier security and compliance for all stakeholders.”

The Raptor does not have geofencing or other unofficial flight restrictions. All airspace information is authoritative and authentic, as Aloft is an UAS Service Supplier (USS) approved by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

This comparison of the Anzu Robotics (left) and DJI Mavic 3 Enterprise (right) drones shows their similarities. | Credit: The Robot Report

Introducing the Anzu Robotics Raptor

Because Anzu’s drones are based on the DJI Mavic 3 Enterprise platform, they are equipped with a 4/3 CMOS sensor 20 MP wide-angle camera with a 56x hybrid zoom camera for 12MP images. Raptor T (for thermal) combines 1/2-inch 48MP and 12MP cameras with a 640×512 high-resolution LWIR thermal imaging payload, also with 56x hybrid zoom capabilities.

Similar to the Mavic 3, the Raptor boasts 45 minutes of flight time, a 9-mile range, and an optional RTK module accessory. Raptor will be backward-compatible with the DJI Intelligent Flight Battery from the DJI Mavic 3 drone.

Raptor is priced at $5,100, while Raptor T will sell for $7,600 in the U.S. This is more expensive than its DJI-badged Mavic cousin, but more competitive than U.S.-made counterparts such as Skydio and BRINC.

Anzu Robotics is targeting enterprise applications with the Raptor, as this is not a consumer platform. The company plans to focus in the coming year on building its its sales and partner distribution channels.

If the proposed legislation is passed and DJI is banned in the U.S., Anzu Robotics said it expects that existing DJI distribution partners would immediately move to it.

The Pilot Institute interviewed Randall Warnas about the company’s strategy and plans for the coming year.

The post Anzu Robotics launches U.S.-based clone of DJI Mavic 3 appeared first on The Robot Report.

The AMD Versal AI Edge and Prime Gen 2 are next-gen SoCs. Source: Advanced Micro Devices

To enable more artificial intelligence on edge devices such as robots, hardware vendors are adding to their processor portfolios. Advanced Micro Devices Inc. today announced the expansion of its adaptive system on chip, or SoC, line with the new AMD Versal AI Edge Series Gen 2 and Versal Prime Series Gen 2.

“The demand for AI-enabled embedded applications is exploding and driving the need for solutions that bring together multiple compute engines on a single chip for the most efficient end-to-end acceleration within the power and area constraints of embedded systems,” stated Salil Raje, senior vice president and general of the Adaptive and Embedded Computing Group at AMD.

“Based on over 40 years of adaptive computing leadership in high-security, high-reliability, long-lifecycle, and safety-critical applications, these latest-generation Versal devices offer high compute efficiency and performance on a single architecture that scales from the low end to high end,” he added.

For more than 50 years, AMD said it has been a leading innovator in high-performance computing (HPC), graphics, and visualization technologies. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company noted that billions of people, Fortune 500 businesses, and scientific research institutions worldwide rely on its technology daily.

Versal Gen 2 addresses three phases of accelerated AI

Advanced Micro Devices said the Gen 2 systems put preprocessing, AI inference, and postprocessing on a single device to deliver accelerated AI. This provides the optimal mix for accelerated AI meet the complex processing needs of real-world embedded systems, it asserted.

• Preprocessing: The new systems include FPGA (field-programmable gate array) logic fabric for real-time preprocessing; flexible connections to a wide range of sensors; and implementation of high-throughput, low-latency data-processing pipelines.
• AI inference: AMD said it provides an array of vector processes in the form of next-generation AI Engines for efficient inference.
• Postprocessing: Arm CPU cores provide the power needed for complex decision-making and control for safety-critical applications, said AMD.

“This single-chip intelligence can eliminate the need to build multi-chip processing solutions, resulting in smaller, more efficient embedded AI systems with the potential for shorter time to market,” the company said.

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AMD builds to maximize power and compute

AMD said its latest systems offer up to 10x more scalar compute compared with the first generation, so the devices can more efficiently handle sensor processing and complex scalar workloads. The Versal Prime Gen 2 devices include new hard IP for high-throughput video processing, including up to 8K multi-channel worflows.

This makes the scalable portfolio suitable for applications such as ultra-high-definition (UHD) video streaming and recording, industrial PCs, and flight computers, according to the company.

In addition, the new SoCs include new AI Engines that AMD claimed will deliver three times the TOPS (trillions of operations per second) per watt than the first-generation Versal AI Edge Series devices.

“Balancing performance, power, [and] area, together with advanced functional safety and security, Versal Series Gen 2 devices deliver new capabilities and features,” said AMD. It added that they “enable the design of high-performance, edge-optimized products for the automotive, aerospace and defense, industrial, vision, healthcare, broadcast, and pro AV [autonomous vehicle] markets.”

“Single-chip intelligence for embedded systems will enable pervasive AI, including robotics … smart city, cloud and AI, and the digital home,” said Manuel Uhm, director for Versal marketing at AMD, in a press briefing. “All will need to be accelerated.”

The Versal Prime Gen 2 is designed for high-throughput applications such as video processing. Source: AMD

Versal powers Subaru’s ADAS vision system

Subaru Corp. is using AMD’s adaptive SoC technology in current vehicles equipped with its EyeSight advanced driver-assistance system (ADAS). EyeSight is integrated into certain car models to enable advanced safety features including adaptive cruise control, lane-keep assist, and pre-collision braking.

“Subaru has selected Versal AI Edge Series Gen 2 to deliver the next generation of automotive AI performance and safety for future EyeSight-equipped vehicles,” said Satoshi Katahira. He is general manager of the Advanced Integration System Department and ADAS Development Department, Engineering Division, at Subaru.

“Versal AI Edge Gen 2 devices are designed to provide the AI inference performance, ultra-low latency, and functional safety capabilities required to put cutting-edge AI-based safety features in the hands of drivers,” he added.

Vivado and Vitis part of developer toolkits

AMD said its Vivado Design Suite tools and libraries can help boost productivity and streamline hardware design cycles, offering fast compile times and enhanced-quality results. The company said the Vitis Unified Software Platform “enables embedded software, signal processing, and AI design development at users’ preferred levels of abstraction, with no FPGA experience needed.”

Earlier this year, AMD released the Embedded+ architecture for accelerated edge AI, as well as the Spartan UltraScale+ FPGA family for edge processing.

Early-access documentation for Versal Series Gen 2 is now available, along with first-generation Versal evaluation kits and design tools. AMD said it expects Gen 2 silicon samples to be available in the first half of 2025, followed by evaluation kits and system-on-modules samples in mid-2025, and production silicon in late 2025.

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Sewing machines were controlled via ROS to synchronized apparel operation with a robot. | Source: ARM Institute

A staggering 97% of the apparel sold and worn in the U.S. is made overseas, according to the American Apparel & Footwear Association. Not only does this mean that the U.S. lost these jobs when apparel manufacturing moved overseas, but it poses a significant risk to our national security, as evidenced by the nation’s struggle to manufacture and obtain personal protective equipment (PPE) at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

PPE was rationed for medical professionals in 2020, but even that wasn’t enough. Images went viral of doctors and nurses fashioning their own masks or re-wearing dirty PPE.

Though the pandemic images of PPE scarcity may have faded from recent memory, the security risk remains. Our nation’s inability to produce PPE has implications for natural disasters. In addition, the lack of onshore apparel manufacturing limits our ability to manufacture military uniforms, tents, parachutes, and other supplies needed to support the U.S. military.

Beyond national security, losing the apparel industry to offshore manufacturing also became a lost business opportunity. According to a Manufacturing Perception Report from the Thomas Network, 61% of Americans surveyed claimed they’re more likely to buy products if they are labeled as being made in the U.S. That’s a significant opportunity, particularly when you’re looking at a trillion-dollar industry.

So, what now? How do we begin to re-shore such a massive industry that has now long since been lost to competing nations? The ARM Institute and its members said they believe that the key lies within robotics and automation.

Robotics as an enabler for reshoring

Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the ARM Institute and its member organizations recognized that robotics and AI could be the key to reshoring this industry. Once it realized the need, the institute began funding projects centered on automating the more manual and tedious aspects of apparel manufacturing.

However, this was no small feat. To start, when the industry has looked at automation in the past, it was unable to overcome the difficulties in getting robots to manipulate and handle pliable materials. The ARM Institute-funded Robotic Assembly of Garments Project led by Siemens Technology with Bluewater Defense, Sewbo, and the University of California at Berkeley took an important step in overcoming this barrier.

This project developed a new robotic assembly process that stiffens garment pieces by laminating its fabric with water-soluble thermoplastic polymer, allowing the robot to handle the previously limp fabric. It then developed a flexible robotic system to assemble fabric pieces into garments.

Traditional sewing machines were controlled via the Robot Operating System (ROS) to synchronize operation with the robot. The polymer used in the stiffening process is easily removed through washing and can be recycled for multiple process cycles.

Development didn’t stop there. While the garments project took a huge step towards proving the viability of robotics in clothing manufacturing, it had a higher cycle time than current manual processes.

More ARM Institute projects

This project led to other development. Subsequent projects took lessons from prior ones and improved processes, further demonstrating not only the viability for using robotics for apparel manufacturing, but also the importance of doing so.

More ARM Institute projects centered on robotic sewing have included:

• “Bot Couture” Robotic Clothing Manufacturing
• Development of a Cost-Effective Robotic Sewing System
• Built-By-Bot: Customized Mask Assembly using Robots
• Rapid PPE Production through Automation & Robotics (RAPPAR)
• Automated Bottom Hemming Through Robotic Garment Manipulation

The U.S Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) funded the Rapid-Response Automated PPE Production in Shipping Containers project through an American Rescue Act Grant. This enabled the ARM Institute to work with fellow Manufacturing USA Institute AFFOA (Advanced Functional Fabrics of America) and several of its members to scale their projects and use in-house engineering expertise.

Work on this project is under way toward the creation of shipping containers housing robotic production that can easily be deployed where and when PPE is needed.

Momentum for apparel automation continues

While these projects have catalyzed the foundational robotics advancements needed to make apparel manufacturing safer and more productive, continued collaboration between industry, government, and academia is needed to build on this momentum.

The ARM Institute is dedicated to making this possible. The Manufacturing of Garments and Other Textile Goods will be included as a special topic area in the ARM Institute’s upcoming Technology Project Call.

Beyond impact for consumer goods and national security, reshoring apparel manufacturing also represents opportunity for the U.S. workforce. While offshore operations today depend on manual, ergonomically unfriendly processes in cramped, often dirty settings, the use of robots will make roles in these factories safer, more engaging, and higher-paying.

While robots take on the dull, dirty, and dangerous tasks, human labor can be freed up to work on operating robots and planning robotics integration. Many of these roles will be available through flexible, low-cost training. These are roles that don’t currently exist in the U.S., resulting in increased employment opportunities for U.S. workers.

The ability to re-shore apparel manufacturing is well within reach, and the ARM Institute is dedicated to working with its members to lead this effort through robotics innovations.

Editor’s notes: This article was syndicated from The Robot Report‘s sibling site Engineering.com.

Dr. Larry Sweet, director of engineering at the ARM Institute, will present a session on “Delivering AI and Machine Learning Enabled Robotics to the Manufacturing and Field Service Operations” at the Robotics Summit & Expo. It will be at 2:45 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, May 1, at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.

Sweet will share updates on current ARM Institute projects, technical approaches, best practices, and lessons learned. He will also describe steps to make advanced technology more accessible to manufacturers of all sizes and to facilitate the work of systems integrators. Register now for the event.

Register now.

The post Robotics innovation is key to reshoring the $1T apparel manufacturing industry appeared first on The Robot Report.

Locus Lock is designing RF systems to provide navigational security. Source: Locus Lock

Flying back from Miami last week, I put my life in the hands of two strangers, just because they wore gold epaulets. These commercial pilots, in turn, trusted their onboard computers to safely navigate the passengers home. The computers accessed satellite data from the Global Positioning System to set the course.

This chain of command is very fragile. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) reported last month an increased level of GPS spoofing and signal jamming since the outbreak of the wars in Ukraine and Israel. This poses the threat of catastrophe to aviators everywhere.

For example, last September, OPS Group reported that a European flight en route to Dubai almost entered into Iranian airspace without clearance. In 2020, Iran shot down an uncleared passenger aircraft that entered its territory. This has made the major airlines, avionics manufacturers, and NATO militaries and governments scramble to find solutions.

Navigational errors can be very dangerous for commercial aircraft. Source: OPS Group

Locus Lock founder came out of drone R&D

At ff Venture Capital, we recognize that GPS spoofing and jamming are fundamental problems for aerial, terrestrial, and marine autonomous systems in moving the industry forward. This investment thesis is grounded on a simple belief that the deployment of cost-effective uncrewed systems requires the trust of human operators who can’t afford to question the data.

When machines go awry, so does the industry. Just ask Cruise! This conviction led us to invest in Locus Lock. The company said it is taking an innovative software approach to GNSS signal processing using radio frequency, at a fraction of the cost of comparable hardware sold by military contractors.

Last week, I sat down with Locus Lock founder Hailey Nichols, a former University of Texas researcher in the school’s Radionavigation Laboratory. UT’s Lab is best known for its work with SpaceX and Starlink.

At Aurora, Nichols focused on integrating suites of sensors such as lidar, GPS, radar, and computer vision for uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs). However, she quickly became frustrated with the costs and quality of the sensors.

“They were physically heavy [and] power-intensive, and it made it quite hard for engineers to integrate,” she recalled. “This problem frustrated me so much that I went back to grad school to study it further, and I joined a lab down at the University of Texas.”

In Austin, the roboticist saw a different approach to sensor data, using software for signal processing.

“The radio navigation lab was very highly specialized in signal processing, specifically bringing in advanced software algorithms and robust estimation techniques forward to sensor technology,” explained Nichols. “This enabled more precise, secure, and reliable data, like positioning, navigation, and timing.”

Her epiphany came when she saw the market demand for the lab’s GNSS receiver from the U.S. Department of Defense and commercial partners after Locus Lock published research on autonomous vehicles accurately navigating urban canyons.

Navigating urban canyons is a challenge for conventional satellite-based systems. Source: Quora

Reliable navigation needed for dual-use applications

Today, Locus Lock is ready to market its product more widely for dual-use applications across the spectrum of autonomy for commercial and defense use cases.

“Current GPS receivers often fail in what’s called ‘urban multipath,'” said Nichols. “This is where there’s building interference and shrouding of the sky can cause positioning errors. This can be problematic for autonomous cars, drones, and outdoor robotics that need access to centimeter-level positioning to make safe and informed decisions about where they are on the road or in the sky.”

The RF engineer continued: “Our other applicable industry is defense tech. With the rise of the Ukraine conflict and the Israel conflict in the Middle East, we’ve seen a massive amount of deliberate interference. So bad actors that are either spoofing or jamming, causing major outages or disruptions in GPS positioning.”

Locus Lock addresses this problem by enabling its GPS processing suite as a software solution, and unlike hardware, it’s affordable and extremely flexible.

“The ability to be backward-compatible and future-proof where we can constantly update and evolve our GPS processing suite to evolving attack vectors ensures that our customers are given the most cutting-edge and up-to-date processing techniques to enable centimeter-level positioning globally,” added Nichols.

“So our GNSS receivers are software-defined radio [SDR] with a specialized variant of inertially aided RTK [real-time kinematics],” she said, claiming that it provides a differentiator from competing products. “What that means is we’re doing some advanced sensor-fusion techniques with GNSS signals in addition to inertial navigation to ensure that, even in these pockets of urban canyons where you may not have access to GNSS signals … the GPS receiver [will] still provide centimeter-level positioning.”

As Nichols boasted, Locus Lock is an enabler of “next generation autonomous mobility.”

Locus Lock looks to affordable centimeter-level accuracy

While traditional GPS components cost around $40,000, Locus Lock said its its proprietary software and a 2-in. board cost around $2,000. Today, centimeter accuracy is inaccessible to most robot companies because most suppliers of robust hardware are military contractors, including L3Harris Technologies, BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman, and Elbit Systems.

“We’ve specifically made sure to cater our solution towards more low-cost environments that can proliferate mass-market autonomy and robotics into the ecosystem,” stated Nichols.

Locus Lock puts its software on a 2-in. board. Source: Oliver Mitchell

Nichols added that Locus Lock’s GNSS receiver is able to pull in data from global and regional satellite constellations.

“[This gives] us more access to any signals in the sky at any given time,” said the startup founder. “Diversity is also increasingly important in next-generation GPS receivers because it allows the device to evade jammed or afflicted channels.”

Grand View Research estimated that the SDR market will climb to nearly $50 billion by 2030. As uncrewed systems proliferate, Locus Lock’s price point should also come down, asserted Nichols.

“And while there are some companies that have progressed their autonomy stacks to be quite high, they haven’t gotten their prices down to make sense in a mass-market scenario,” she said. “And so it’s crucial to enable this next generation of autonomous mobility at large to not compromise on performance but to be able to provide this at an affordable price. Locus Lock is providing high-end performance at a much lower price point.”

Nichols even predicted that the company could eventually get product to under $1,000, if not less, with more adoption.

Source: Grand View Research

Tesla Optimus takes steps toward more mobile systems

Yesterday, Tesla published on X the latest video of its Optimus humanoid moving fluidly at an incredible gait for a robot. Pitchbook recently predicted that this could be a breakout period for humanoids, with 84 leading companies now having raised over $4.6 billion.

Tesla’s Optimus Robot Achieves New Milestones in Mobility and Task Efficiency

Advanced Mobility Showcased:
Tesla’s latest clip of the Optimus humanoid robot demonstrates significant advancements in fluid mobility, as the robot is seen taking smooth strides within a testing… pic.twitter.com/hMlq2w3tQ7

— Tesla Pablo (@pablo9948967714) February 25, 2024

At the same time, the prospect of such advanced machines being hijacked via GPS spoofing into the service of terrorists, cybercriminals, or hostile governments is very real and horrifying. Thankfully, Nichols and her team are working with the Army Futures Command.

“A lot of this work has been done in spoofing and jamming — not only detection, but also mitigation,” she said. “We detect the type of RF environment that we are operating in to mitigate it and inform that end user with the situational awareness that is needed to assess ongoing attacks.”

“In addition, we can iterate much faster and bring in world-class experts on security and encryption to ensure that we protect secure military signals as much as possible,” said Nichols. “Our software can find assured reception that is demanded by these increasingly expensive and important assets that the military needs to protect.”

In ffVC’s view, our newest portfolio company is mission-critical to operating drones, robots, and other autonomous vessels safely, affordably, and securely in an increasingly dangerous world.

The post Locus Lock promises to protect autonomous systems from GPS spoofing appeared first on The Robot Report.

Xwing aircraft involved in USAF autonomy tests. Source: Xwing

A joint program by the U.S. Air Force and Xwing Inc. has demonstrated fixed-wing cargo-carrying capability in a point-to-point flight between two airbases using a specially modified Cessna 208B Grand Caravan.

In modern conflict, it’s axiomatic that logistics wins wars. And in an interconnected global economy, it also wins the peace.

In air freight alone, just under 16 million metric tons of cargo was flown worldwide in 2023. That represents a $335 billion market, and it’s not just dedicated cargo operators that benefit. For many airlines, cargo represents up to one-third of revenue. It’s a lot of freight, requiring lots of airframes, engines, and, of course, pilots.

The U.S. Air Force is naturally interested in the problem of air transport efficiency and has been investigating the possibilities of autonomous operation for years. The AFWERX innovation unit of the Air Force operates a research program called Autonomy Prime, which partners with private industry to accelerate testing of autonomous systems.

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Xwing advances autonomous flight

The program demonstrated a breakthrough on January 26, when program partner Xwing successfully completed a fully autonomous logistics mission, carrying cargo from March Air Reserve Base in Riverside, Calif., to McClellan Airfield near Sacramento.

The cargo run was performed using no human intervention at all. Advanced autopilot technology has been around for decades, as have drone fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters, so what makes this important?

Two aspects of the Autonomy Prime program are significant. The first is that point-to-point autonomous air cargo is instrumental to the Air Force Agile Combat Employment concept, which requires aircraft and equipment that are dispersed from major hub bases to smaller airfields to improve survivability. Doing this with crewed aircraft would be impossible without serious impact on conventional air transport operations.

The second, and possibly more significant impact, is that the Xwing test aircraft is not a prototype or military airplane. It’s a civil registered Cessna 208B Grand Caravan. The 208 is a popular light passenger and cargo aircraft already in extensive use by American cargo carriers for regional distribution, with a 3,000-lb. (1,360.7 kg) payload.

Technically, this means that the Xwing system has proven integration with aircraft systems in standard, certified designs, including conventional, mechanically operated control surfaces and standard engine management systems.

Conventional aircraft could go pilotless

The implication is clear: With the system already functioning well in an airframe already in common use by package delivery operators all over America, the replacement of the pilot in regional operations may only be a matter of Federal Aviation Administration approval. The test aircraft has been flying autonomously since 2020 and has 500 autonomous hours across 250 flights.

The future? A possible development is the automation of conventional aircraft to form optionally piloted systems, or cargo operators could use conventional flight crew for controlled airspace, then fly the final leg of the flight to remote destinations autonomously.

The end of the human pilot has been predicted for decades, and although the true robot airplane isn’t here yet, Autonomy Prime is bringing it one step closer.

Editor’s note: This article was syndicated from The Robot Report sibling site Engineering.com. Access all episodes of “This Week in Engineering” on Engineering.com TV.

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The ARM Institute supports workforce development and robotics adoption. Source: Adobe Stock

The Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing, or ARM, Institute today announced that the continuation of its cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Defense’s Manufacturing Technology Program. The $35.4 million agreement will continue the ARM Institute’s funding to support U.S. manufacturing through automation and workforce development through 2028.

“The ARM Institute would like to thank the Department of Defense and, in particular, our government program manager Dr. Greg Hudas for working diligently to secure our continued agreement,” said Ira Moskowitz, CEO of the ARM Institute, in a release. “We look forward to continuing to work with the Department of Defense to strengthen U.S. manufacturing and respond to our nation’s greatest challenges.”

In 2017, Carnegie Mellon University won an award from the Department of Defense (DoD) to create a robotics-focused Manufacturing Innovation Institute (MII). The ARM Institute is a nonprofit organization with more than 400 members across industry, government, and academia. It is headquartered at the Mill 19 facility in Pittsburgh and supports a variety of projects to enhance U.S. competitiveness.

DoD funds innovation initiatives

Unlike countries such as Germany, Japan, and China, the U.S. doesn’t have a centralized industrial policy. However, the DoD has promoted U.S. manufacturing by funding robotics and workforce development programs.

The Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering oversees the Manufacturing Technology (ManTech) program. The ARM Institute is funded under Agreement Number W911NF-17-3-0004 and is part of the Manufacturing USA network.

The institute’s original agreement with the DoD provided funding through January 2023. After a review by Joint Defense Manufacturing Council (JDMC) in 2022, the DoD began working on the terms to extend the agreement.

“Over the past seven years, the ARM Institute-Department of Defense public-private partnership has made important progress in strengthening U.S. manufacturing through advanced robotics, related AI technologies, and workforce development,” stated Dr. Greg Hudas, Department of Defense program manager for the ARM Institute, “With the continuation agreement in place, this partnership will build on this progress and continue to push innovation to a higher level for the good of the warfighter and the nation.”

The renewed agreement also offers the Defense Department the option to renew the contract again for another five years after 2028, bringing the ARM Institute’s total possible investment to $70.4 million over 10 years.

ARM Institute picks manufacturing projects

The ARM Institute said its mission is “to make robotics, autonomy, and artificial intelligence more accessible to U.S. manufacturers large and small, train and empower the manufacturing workforce, strengthen our economy and global competitiveness, and elevate national security and resilience.”

The institute, which has a satellite office in St. Petersburg, Fla., noted that it has already funded more than 150 projects and built out robotics capabilities at its headquarters. It has also collaborated with DoD on “targeted directed” projects, built an internal team of nearly 40 experts, and created the RoboticsCareer.org national workforce resource.

For instance, the ARM Institute has funded a project to support a forward operating base with no access to conventional logistics, initiated a scholarship in Pittsburgh’s Hazelwood neighborhood, named “champions” promoting its mission, and endorsed training programs.

The ARM Institute said the new DoD agreement will support its operations and member services, provide funding for projects with its members, and support existing capabilities as well as new initiatives. A spokesperson told The Robot Report that the institute is also examining potential initiatives to advance artificial intelligence in manufacturing.

Editor’s note: At the 2024 Robotics Summit & Expo on May 1 and 2 in Boston, attendees can visit the ARM Institute at Booth 131 to learn more about its existing and upcoming initiatives.

In addition, Dr. Larry Sweet, former director of worldwide robotics development at Amazon Robotics and current director of engineering at the ARM Institute, will give a presentation. He will discuss “Delivering AI and Machine Learning-Enabled Robotics to the Manufacturing and Field-Service Operations” in Room 256 at 2:45 p.m. ET on Wednesday, May 1. Register now to attend.

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Tailwind provides visual navigation to drones in GPS-denied environments. Source: KEF Robotics

While autopilots have helped fly aircraft for nearly a century, recent improvements in computer vision and autonomy promise to bring more software-based capabilities onboard. KEF Robotics Inc. has been developing technologies to increase aircraft safety, reliability, and range.

Founded in 2018, KEF said it provides algorithms that use camera data to enable autonomous flight across a variety of platforms and use cases. The Pittsburgh-based company works with designers to integrate these autonomy features into their aircraft.

“Our company’s mantra is to provide visual autonomy capabilities with any camera, any drone, or any computer,” said Eric Amoroso, co-founder and chief technology officer of KEF Robotics. “Being flexible and deployable to drones changes the integration from days to hours, as well as providing safe, reliable navigation,” he told The Robot Report.

“Think of us as an alternative to GPS,” said Olga Pogoda, chief operating officer at KEF Robotics. “The situation in Ukraine shows the difficulty of operating without GPS and true autonomy on the aircraft.”

KEF Robotics enables aircraft to operate without signals

“We founded KEF while entering a Lockheed Martin competition, which whittled 200 teams down to nine,” recalled Amoroso. “The drones had to be autonomous, which was a perfect test case for modular, third-party software.”

Since then, KEF Robotics has worked with the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), which uses drones with multiple sensors to search for weapons of mass destruction.

The company said its Tailwind visual navigation software can use stereo cameras for hazard detection and avoidance and that it uses machine learning to localize objects and complete missions. This is particularly important for defense and security missions.

“Our long-term goal is to allow an aircraft to complete complex missions with a button push,” said Pogoda. “An operator can provide an overhead image of a building and a general direction.”

“Then, the autonomous aircraft can take off, fly to a location, and conduct a search pattern,” she explained. “It can reroute based on hazards on the way, and then it can take pictures or readings and come back to an operator without transmitting any signals.”

KEF Robotics said Tailwind, which can work at night and long-range, GPS-denied flights, is in testing and on its way to availability. The software has been validated at speeds up to 100 mph and provides closed-loop autonomous operations with drift rates of 2% of the distance traveled. It has not yet been qualified for extreme weather or conditions such as dust, fog, or smoke.

Integration important for modular approach

As with other autonomous systems such as cars, a technology stack with layers of capabilities from different, specialized providers is evolving for aircraft and drones.

“We’re seeing an interesting economic trend in purchasing aircraft — manufacturers are focusing on producing aircraft, and autonomy software is complex,” Pogoda noted. “More companies just want to build the aircraft with open interfaces to allow their customers to add capabilities after the initial delivery.”

To facilitate a more rapid integration of advanced autonomy, the U.S. Department of Defense’s Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) is an initiative intended to save money, enable faster and easier equipment upgrades, and improve system interoperability. KEF Robotics is following this approach.

“MOSA says that everything should be open architecture, and the industry must create tools for everything to work together,” said Pogoda.

KEF Robotics has won Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants to advance its technology. How does modular software figure in?

“The Defense Innovation Unit started pushing the MOSES philosophy that companies like KEF Robotics are embracing to rapidly integrate and innovate UAS [uncrewed aircraft system] technology,” Amoroso said. “We specialize in providing plug-and-play visual perception — technology that is expensive and challenging to develop if you’re also designing novel UAS. With MOSA, drone builders can let KEF Robotics focus on the reliability and performance challenges of visual perception while selling a product with state-of-the-art autonomy.”

“The conflict in Ukraine showed the crippling impacts of widespread GPS jamming and the utility of low-cost UAS,” he added. “It’s only through MOSA do we believe that we can circumvent these threats affordably and at scale.”

“KEF offers two forms of our solution,” said Amoroso. “One is for those interested in GPS-denied navigation, collision avoidance, and target localization. It’s a hardware-based payload that includes systems to communicate with an autopilot.”

“There’s also a software-only deployment for drones that may already have such hardware onboard,” he added. “We follow the MOSA philosophy for deploying our software, along with others’ software and camera drivers.”

For example, KEF Robotics’ software can take measurements and localize them, and a third-party architecture can do custom object detection to spot smokestacks, Amoroso said.

KEF Robotics collaborates with Auterion, Duality AI

“Before KEF came along, there was already a great community working on GPS-denied navigation, including Auterion and Cloud Ground Control,” said Amoroso. “But we had teams and companies coming to us saying, ‘How can we get vision navigation to be plug and play?'”

In June 2023, Auterion Government Solutions partnered with KEF Robotics to combine AuterionOS with Tailwind for robots and autonomous systems.

“We have a great relationship with Auterion, which sees the same core needs for ease of integration and reliability,” Amoroso said. “We offer an instantiation of vision-based navigation, but we want to set it up for new players to slot in and offer their solutions more easily, such as a lidar-based state estimator.”

“We started chatting early last year about how we’d work with Auterion Enterprise PX4,” he noted. “Auterion wanted to see a GPS-denied demonstration with its own UAVs, and within 18 hours, we got our system running with autopilot in a closed loop. We’re still doing demos with them and are interested in getting our software working with Auterion’s Skynode.”

In November, KEF Robotics said it was working with Duality AI’s Falcon digital-twin integration program to develop autonomy software for a tethered uncrewed aircraft system (TeUAS) under a U.S. Army SBIR contract. Falcon can simulate different environments and drone configurations.

“It can simulate challenging scenarios like cluttered forests to test our software and drones,” said Amoroso. “This is similar to how simulation can help autonomous vehicles augment safety, with the benefit of being able to deploy different camera configurations and software.”

Why decoupling software and hardware makes sense 

How does KEF divide tasks between its systems and those of its partners? “The industry has already aggregated around some standards, but there are always customizations involved to meet a customer’s needs,” replied Amoroso.

“Some customers will say it’s OK to plug in our navigational messaging, and others prefer a companion computer that can monitor measurements or guidance commands to verify or support their own planning,” he said. “It’s important to be flexible and to understand early on what are the interfaces and to do drone demos to show that we can still execute a mission even if we don’t have full control of position or velocity.”

“But the advantage is, by decoupling autonomy from specific hardware, we can generalize our approach and rapidly integrate on a new platform,” Amoroso said. “If an aircraft has an open design, we can integrate our complex software in less than a day, start flying, and then progress to a tighter integration at a customer’s request.”

KEF Robotics is currently focused on defense applications, with a multi-aircraft demonstration of Tailwind for the Army planned for September 2024.

KEF has designed its autonomy software to be hardware-agnostic. Source: KEF Robotics

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The Knightscope K3 tower is a mobile indoor version of the company’s security technology. | Credit: Knightscope

Knightscope Inc. has received its Authority to Operate from the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, or FedRAMP, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The Mountain View, Calif.-based security robot provider said this will enable it to be listed on the FedRAMP Marketplace as an approved provider for federal agencies.

FedRAMP is a governmentwide program to validate the security of cloud-based software used by federal agencies and buildings. Knightscope added that the Authority to Operate (ATO) will allow it to deploy its first K5 Autonomous Security Robot (ASR) under a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) contract.

“Knightscope’s ATO achievement proves our organizational focus on cybersecurity and our unwavering commitment to our mission of better securing our country,” said Mercedes Soria, executive vice president and chief intelligence officer at the company, in a release. She led the nearly three-year effort to reach this milestone.

“We believe going through this intense and rigorous process has improved our security posture, which also will positively impact commercial and civilian applications,” Soria added.

Why federal suppliers need an ATO

The U.S. government created the ATO to provide a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring for cloud products and services. The process of certification and accreditation can take a long time for technology suppliers.

Vendors choose to go through the ATO process because of the potential value of having the federal government as a client. The government uses ATOs to keep its networks safe by checking the security of both new and old systems. Authorization shows that a company understands that its system’s benefits outweigh its practical dangers and that it is resistant to hacking.

The security risk could be substantial, as Knightscope’s systems use cameras to take images of their surroundings. In a federal building, some areas patrolled by robots might include sensitive information or expose content of value to other nations.

In the wrong hands, this data could be a threat to both the content of the building, as well as national security. As a result, a mobile robot such as Knightscope’s K5 requires rigorous validation. Knightscope said it is one of 324 companies to receive authorization to date.

Knightscope follows roadmap to growth

Knightscope went through a long process to get its ATO, according to a blog post titled “2024 Roadmap to Profitable Growth” by William Santana Li, chairman and CEO of the company. In the first phase, Knightscope’s robots conducted a “large-scale proof of concept,” logging millions of hours in the field for commercial customers, generating more than $30 million, and demonstrating that they could help combat crime.

The next important milestones for the company include shipping the K5 indoor and outdoor robot and the new K1 Hemisphere stationary sensor system. The company also recently launched its Automated Gunshot Detection (AGD) capability.

As Knightscope enters its second phase, it must demonstrate 50% to 67% profit margins and organizational effectiveness, wrote Santana Li. The company is also working toward more versions of its ASR and is considering acquisitions, he said. 

Knightscope is working on its largest autonomous security vehicle, the K7. It is a bit larger than a typical golf cart and is designed for offroad operations with four-wheel drive and four-wheel independent steering. Li stated that the company plans to begin taking pre-orders for the K7 in 2025.

Not only does completing the ATO process an important milestone for Knightscope in selling to the federal government, but it also provides private companies confidence in the company’s systems, said Santana Li. 

“The multi-year effort to acquire the ATO showcases the relentless nature of the Knightscope team and significantly increases the TAM (total addressable market) that the company can serve,” he said. “Now it is time to build on that momentum as we continue to execute our multi-phase roadmap.”

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LIG Nex1 and a PE firm have offered to acquire 60% of quadruped maker Ghost Robotics. Source: Ghost Robotics

LIG Nex1 Co. has declared in a regulatory filing its interest in acquiring a controlling stake in Ghost Robotics Corp., which develops quadruped robots for the U.S. military and its allies, as well as industrial customers.

“We’ve been experiencing incredible growth over the past few years,” Gavin Kenneally, co-founder and CEO of Ghost Robotics, told The Robot Report. “We believe LIG Nex1 will be a great partner to help us grow domestically and internationally. This proposed partnership will also be positive for the national security interests of the U.S. and our close allies such as South Korea.”

Kenneally and co-founder Avik De both completed their Ph.D.s in Daniel Koditschek’s legged robotics lab at the University of Pennsylvania. They then co-founded Ghost Robotics in 2015 and were joined shortly thereafter by their first CEO, Jiren Parikh, until his untimely passing in March 2022.

The Philadelphia-based company said it has been building Q-UGVs (uncrewed ground vehicles) with customer partners for specific environments and government and enterprise uses. Its offerings include the Vision 60 UGV.

LIG plans to acquire share of Ghost Robotics at $400M valuation

Korea JoongAng Daily reported that LIG Nex1 plans to spend 187.7 billion won ($143.3 million U.S.), which reflects its 60% of the contemplated transaction value. A private equity investor would provide the remaining 40% of the total $240 million deal. 

That $240 million is 60% of Ghost Robotics’ $400 million enterprise valuation, explained Kenneally. LIG Nex1, an aerospace and defense manufacturer previously owned by LIG Group, is required to declare its intent as a public company in Korea, he said. LIG plans to conduct the purchase through a special-purpose acquisition company, said Korea JoongAng Daily.

“We’re actively negotiating definitive agreements at the moment and look forward to achieving consensus and signing soon,” Kenneally said. “We’ll be going through the appropriate regulatory review steps and anticipate closing sometime in the second quarter of next year.”

He said Ghost Robotics will have more news to share about its technologies and market outreach after the deal closes.

About a year ago, Hyundai-owned Boston Dynamics filed a patent-infringement lawsuit against Ghost Robotics, which replied at the time that its systems are based on original research. That case is still pending.

Defense demand for ground robots market to grow

Despite ethical debates, robots in military and homeland security applications promise to improve efficiency and save lives. In March 2022, the U.S. Department of Defense specified policy, assigned responsibilities, and provided procedures for automated weapons platforms.

The global market for military robotics could expand from $22.78 billion in 2023 to $31.9 billion by 2028 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.97%, according to Mordor Intelligence. The market research firm said it expects demand for ground robots to be especially strong in defense and security applications.

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