Alex Beall

China is the largest robotics market in the world right now after selling 87,000 units in 2016, according to the International Federation of Robotics. And as a result, the country’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology expects China will need 200,000 skilled workers by 2020 to operate the growing number of robots. To help meet…

IBM and University of California San Diego have launched a joint research project to combine technology, artificial intelligence and life science knowledge to improve quality of life for aging populations. The partnership is part of IBM’s Cognitive Horizons Network — a group of universities working with the company to implement AI — and aims to…

Robot support company Robotiq launched a new software product called Insights to boost performance of Universal Robots, the company announced yesterday. Insights is a web application that allows robot operators to monitor how productive their robots are based on key performance indicators. Using the data on cycles times and failures in the production line, operators…

The Federal Aviation Administration expanded its drone flight restrictions yesterday to include major U.S. landmarks at the request of the U.S. national security and law enforcement agencies. The new regulation prevents drone flights within 400 feet of 10 Department of the Interior sites: the Statue of Liberty, Boston National Historical Park, Independence National Historical Park…

The Toyota Research Institute demonstrated the latest version of its self-driving vehicle platform, Platform 2.1, on a closed course this week. The first version of the platform was only released in March of this year. “In the last few months, we have rapidly accelerated our pace in advancing Toyota’s automated driving capabilities with a vision…

Kinova Robotics, a Canadian provider of robotics for the disabled, raised $20 million USD ($25 million CAD) that will fund product development, market expansion and production optimization. The financing came from Fonds Manufacturier Québécois, the KTB Network, Foxconn and BDC Capital. “We want our users to achieve the extraordinary with our robots — creating more…

Caterpillar Inc. recently revealed the newest capabilities and improvements to its Komatsu 930E autonomous mining truck, developed with Torc Robotics, the latest move in the company’s efforts to develop autonomous mining vehicles. “We want to do all we can to help our customers get the most out of their existing equipment assets,” Caterpillar Mining Technology…

Autonomous vehicle startup Drive.ai secured $15 million in funding to help the company expand its leadership team, develop its technology, grow business partnerships and open its first international office in Singapore. The financing was led by Southeast Asia transportation and mobile payments platform Grab, though others participated as well. The funds build on Drive.ai’s June…

Artificial intelligence developer Universal Logic partnered with Agricultural Robotics to provide the organization with 100 of its Neocortex AI systems to automate agricultural tasks, Universal announced today. The two companies agreed to the memorandum of understanding following an acceptance test and creating a plant picking and sorter machine by combining the AI systems with robotics.…

A new robot from MIT can adapt its capabilities with a simple outfit change. The tiny robot called Primer, developed by the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, puts on different exoskeletons allowing it to roll, float, drive and even glide. Primer starts as a cube, but uses heat to put on the new exoskeleton,…

Ride share company Lyft is driving full speed ahead in efforts to support the self-driving vehicle industry with several new partnerships just this month. Yesterday, Ford Motor Co. announced it is working with Lyft to deploy Ford’s autonomous vehicles using the ride sharing service. Together, the companies plan to develop software that will connect the…

PROCEPT BioRobotics announced today that the first patients were treated in its WATER II Study, a clinical trial testing the safety and efficacy of Aquablation delivery by its surgical robotic AquaBeam System to treat benign prostatic hyperplasia. The trials test the use of the system in prostates 80 to150 mL and will enroll 100 patients…

Corindus Vasular Robotics opened its first international CorPath GRX Robotic Center in Tokyo to educate cardiologists on robotic-assisted percutaneous coronary interventions, the company announced today. “The opening of the first international robotic center represents an important milestone in the process of bringing precision vascular robotics to patients and physicians in Japan and around the world,”…

Factories worldwide are set to install more than 1.7 million new industrial robots by 2020, according to the new International Federation of Robotics World Robotics 2017 Industrial Robots report published today. There were about 1.8 million operating industrial robots at the end of 2016, marking an expected 14% annual growth rate between 2018 and 2020.…

Civilian drone provider DJI released two new drones — the Mavic Pro Platinum and the Phantom 4 Pro Obsidian — and updates to its Spark drone earlier this month. “DJI continuously looks for ways to improve its products and introduce new features, many of which are the result of the positive feedback and requests we…

Business mentoring company Britbots launched a crowdfunding platform Britbots CROWD to support British robotics startups, the company announced today. “Whilst talking to investors about the British Robotics Seed Fund we realized that there was a broad appetite amongst investors to include some high-potential robotics businesses in their portfolio on a discretionary basis without necessarily going…

Cloud software company Tend plans to launch its new cloud-based robot monitoring and analysis application, in.view, at this week’s RoboBusiness conference. The platform allows for remote monitoring of industrial robots as well as analysis of their real-time performance through a mobile application. Through the app, users can access live and historic video footage of the…

An origami-inspired folding robot developed by Harvard researchers uses an external magnetic field for power, giving it potential for application in medical, industrial or consumer robots. Originally reported in Science Robotics and created by a team at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, the arm consists…

Digital labor company IPsoft today announced the launch of its new artificial intelligence platform, Amelia Health Agent, which leverages its existing AI system to streamline and automate tasks for the healthcare industry. “We have seen the hype about AI’s ability to find cures for major diseases overnight.  Now it is time to recover AI’s reputation…

Toyota and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation launched joint research to drive the development and use of consumer robots, the companies announced today. The work will focus on using NTT’s AI technology, corevo, and Toyota’s Human Support Robot, which is currently under development, together with the goal of creating robots and other devices that can…

Chinese apparel company Tianyuan Garments Co. plans to open a $20 million factory in Little Rock, using 330 robots from U.S.-based robotics company Softwear Automation. Tianyuan — which supplies apparel to Adidas, Armani and Reebok — will produce t-shirts at the new factory for a cost of 33¢ per shirt. The “sewbots” used can produce…

ABB acquired the industrial solutions unit of General Electric today for $2.6 billion in a move that will help ABB expand its hold in the North American market, the company announced. “With GE Industrial Solutions, we strengthen our Number 2 position in electrification globally and expand our access to the attractive North American market,” ABB…