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Top 10 robotics stories of March 2020

By Steve Crowe | April 6, 2020

What a month it was for robotics. Whether it was coverage of how the robotics industry is reacting to the COVID-19 pandemic or Boston Dynamics’ vision of the future, there was no shortage of robotics stories to cover in March 2020.

Here are the Top 10 most popular robotics stories on The Robot Report in March 2020. Subscribe to The Robot Report‘s weekly newsletter to stay updated on the robotics stories you need to know about.


robotics stories

10. Drone detects & avoids obstacles in 3.5 milliseconds

Researchers at the University of Zurich equipped a quadcopter with special event cameras and algorithms that reduced its reaction time down to a few milliseconds. The researchers invented algorithms that collect all the events recorded by the camera over a short time, subtracting the effect of the drone’s movement. Read Full Story


robotics stories

9. Robotics investments recap: February 2020

The Robot Report tracked 25 reported investments, mergers, and acquisitions across automation. The reported values were worth a total of $1.19 billion. In comparison, The Robot Report recorded $1.16 billion in transactions in January 2020, and $4.3 billion in February 2019. Read Full Story


robotics stories

8. The Robot Report March 2020 issue on cobots

The latest issue of The Robot Report is dedicated to collaborative robots. In the issue, we catch up with Universal Robots Co-Founder, who recently founded REInvest Robotics, an accelerator platform robotics startups. We also cover five cobot trends to watch, Sawyer’s machine tending skills, and look at Teradyne’s new $36 million cobot hub in Denmark. Read Full Story


robotics stories

7. Jibo social robot assets acquired by NTT Disruption

NTT Disruption, a San Francisco-based company that is part of Japanese telecommunications company NTT Corporation, recently acquired three patents from Jibo, the social robotics company that shut down in November 2018. Learn what one source told The Robot Report NTT will likely do with these assets. Read Full Story


robotics stories

6. Robotics startups collaborating on low-cost ventilator for COVID-19 patients

Alex Frost, Founder of FloraBot, and Tyler Mantel, Founder of Watertower Robotics, started The Ventilator Project, a non-profit developing a low-cost ventilator for COVID-19 patients. One ventilator costs about $40,000, according to estimates. Mantel said his team is prototyping a ventilator that will cost between $1,000-$2,000. Read Full Story


robotics stories

5. MIT helping robots perform complex tasks without many rules

Training interactive robots may one day be an easy job for everyone, even those without programming expertise. Roboticists are developing automated robots that can learn new tasks solely by observing humans. At home, you might someday show a domestic robot how to do routine chores. In the workplace, you could train robots like new employees, showing them how to perform many duties. Read Full Story


4. Starsky Robotics co-founder on self-driving truck shutdown

Starsky Robotics shut down in March 2020. This came as no surprise as several reports covered the self-driving truck startup’s problems. Starsky’s CEO & Co-Founder Stefan Seltz-Axmacher addressed the shutdown in a lengthy blog. He said the biggest challenge is that “supervised machine learning doesn’t live up to the hype. It isn’t actual artificial intelligence akin to C-3PO, it’s a sophisticated pattern-matching tool.” Read Full Story


3. OTTO, Boston Dynamics demo future of warehouse robotics

Boston Dynamics and OTTO Motors demoed their vision of the future of logistics automation. A video shows Boston Dynamics’ Handle robot picking up boxes and building pallets on top of OTTO’s autonomous mobile robots. Boston Dynamics said Handle completed proof of concept trials with customers in warehouses last year. Read Full Story


2. How much Boston Dynamics’ bipedal robots improved in 10 years

A video comparing the capabilities of Boston Dynamics’ humanoid robots in 2009 and 2019 made the rounds on social media again. The video showcases the Protection Ensemble Test Mannequin, which we know better as PETMAN, that was invented in 2009 and Atlas robot. Check out the side-by-side comparison video. The progress is astounding. Read Full Story


1. COVID-19 coverage

The Robot Report is covering how the robotics industry is responding to and being affected by COVID-19. We have shared how robots are working to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus and how robots are helping diagnose the disease. Robotics experts have also shared their thoughts on how COVID-19 will impact the future of robotics and autonomous vehicles. Special Coverage of COVID-19

About The Author

Steve Crowe

Steve Crowe is Editor of The Robot Report and co-chair of the Robotics Summit & Expo. He joined WTWH Media in January 2018 after spending four-plus years as Managing Editor of Robotics Trends Media. He can be reached at [email protected]

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