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Startup profile: Cambrian Intelligence making cobots easier to use

By Oliver Mitchell | March 20, 2020

Cambrian Intelligence

A Cambrian Intelligence demo using a UR5 cobot arm to pick pneumatic connectors.

Editor’s Note: Oliver Mitchell is a Venture Partner at ff Venture Capital. Cambrian Intelligence is a portfolio company of ff Venture Capital.

Computer vision is a defining element of intelligent machines transforming mechanical movements into dynamic workflow. Realizing the importance of artificial intelligence for Industry 4.0, my investment firm, ff Venture Capital, partnered with NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering to create an AI accelerator program in 2016. In April 2017, the accelerator, NYU/ffVC AI NexusLab, graduated its first cohort.

One of the standouts, which in full disclosure is now part of ff VC’s portfolio, is London-based Cambrian Intelligence. Earlier this year, I caught up with Cambrian’s founder, Miika Pera, on his firm’s progress in applying its AI imaging platform to collaborative robotics.

“The vision that I have is that with deep integration of AI to robotics, we can gradually start making all physical matter around us programmable, meaning all supply chains from manufacturing to mining from hospitality to medical and food,” Pera said. “In essence, we’re building technology for the world where everything will be made by robots. Currently, everything around us has been built by human hands in some way or another and if we’re smart enough we can automate that – but the robots need intelligence to replace human hands and arms in any repetitive or non-repetitive tasks.”

The engineer imagines a future whereby any designer, anywhere, could “just upload a CAD design of a new product, to a factory full of intelligent robots and the product just gets made without any human intervention and, of course, at a low cost.”

How Cambrian Intelligence’s system works

To accomplish the lofty goal of enabling smart manufacturing through today’s installed base of cobots, Cambrian Intelligence is infusing off-the-shelf sensors with its full-stack platform.

“Our AI, which is a giant neural network, receives input from the cameras and outputs the part locations, orientations and how they should be grasped with the current gripper type. Our software then guides the robot to do the picking,” Pera described. He stressed the camera module is “just two off-the-shelf industrial RGB cameras in a stereo configuration.”

The startup’s intellectual property is its software that turns the sensors into virtual eyes that perceive the working environment in three dimensions, versus existing two dimensional solutions on the marketplace.

Cambrian Intelligence

“Imagine you’re a manufacturer and you have part A and part B in a chaotic bin and you’d like to install the A into B and then pass it forward in the assembly line,” illustrated Pera. “With Cambrian setting up for these kinds of tasks, it takes just minutes and you’re good to go. There is no learning on the real robot, after training it just works out of the box.”

According to Pera, Cambrian Intelligence’s solution is a game-changer for his clients, large European manufacturers, and is adaptable to all the leading robot arms, including ABB, KUKA, and Universal Robots.

Intelligence to fuel growth of cobot industry

Cambrian Intelligence is part of a larger story about the growth of the cobot industry, which is projected to exceed $24 billion annually by 2030. Rian Whitton of ABI Research projects, “The hardware innovation is still trailing behind, and most of the value related to cobots does not come from collaboration. It comes through ease-of-use, re-programmability, lower total cost compared to industrial systems, and re-deployability. In essence, the value is one of lowering barriers rather than building entirely new use cases for robots. What is more, cobots still trail industrial systems in speed, performance, and payload, which will have to change if adoption is to continue at this feverish rate.”

Whitton estimates software systems could account for half of cobot revenues, climbing from its present value of $558 million to $10.6 billion in 2030. Universal Robots owns the majority of global marketshare.

Cambrian is part of a new class of cobot software companies leveraging deep learning to tackle specific tasks. “Our current customers are manufacturers in the electronics and automotive industries,” Pera detailed. “For example, the body shop of an automotive factory is almost fully automated, but the automotive assembly is not automated at all.”

He explained how Cambrian Intelligence is expanding its task library. Today it is able to automate 10-15% of manual labor, but within five years Pera claimed its software will be able to do 70-80% of manufacturing tasks that are currently done by hand.

“Enhancing cobots with more intelligence will actualize much higher growth rates for the cobot sales as they will be quicker to set for a new task and manufacturers can use them for more tasks,” Pera said.

About The Author

Oliver Mitchell

Oliver Mitchell is a partner at ff Venture Capital. Oliver first joined ff VC in 2014 as a Limited Partner, and then in 2018 as a Venture Partner. Today, he takes a leading role on the investment team in expanding the portfolio’s deep tech position with holdings in robotics, drones, artificial intelligence, and industrial automation technologies. Oliver also works with ffVC’s investor relations in forging strategic relationships for our limited partners and corporate venture groups. In addition, he serves on the boards of Civ Robotics, Cambrian Intelligence, AppBind, Storyfit, and Cardflight.

Previously, Oliver ran his own investment portfolio of a dozen companies that have since returned 8 exits, including two IPOs (NVCR and EKSO) and one unicorn (Triple Lift) with a combined value of over $20 billion. Previous startup outcomes have included selling Holmes Protection to ADT/Tyco, AmeriCash to American Express, and launching RobotGalaxy, a national consumer S.T.E.M. brand. Oliver is an Adjunct Professor at Sy Syms School of Business, and frequent writer of trade periodicals.

Comments

  1. Michal Blazek says

    April 30, 2020 at 3:43 am

    Dear RobotReport,

    we are enjoying your articles a lot! They always bring great insight. However, would you please consider writing about a company that has done all of this approximately 4 years ago? We are a leading company in vision-guided robotics applications, robotic intelligence software as well as AI-powered logistics solutions.

    All of these technologies are present in our portfolio with actual real-life integrations (these can be found here https://www.photoneo.com/use-cases/applications/)

    It would be a great privilege to be mentioned on your web page and I am happy to provide you with all information you need as well as exclusive articles.

    Please could you get back to me so we can discuss it?

    Thank you

    Michal Blazek

    Reply
    • Eugene Demaitre says

      April 30, 2020 at 7:37 am

      Michal, e-mail us directly at edemaitre@wtwhmedia.com. Thanks.

      Reply

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