Aaron Edsinger is CEO and Co-Founder of Hello Robot, a robotics company dedicated to developing practical, safe, and accessible robots for people. With a passion for building robots and robot companies, Edsinger has founded four companies focused on bringing human collaborative robots to the consumer, manufacturing, healthcare and research markets. Two of these companies, Meka Robotics and Redwood Robotics, were acquired by Google in 2013. As Robotics Director at Google, he led the business, product and technical development of two of Google’s central investments in robotics, and worked closely with Senior Vice-President and C-level executives to define the overall robotics strategy. Edsinger is a recognized robotics innovator with a broad understanding of the entire robot product design stack, including: human–robot interaction, UX design, mechanical design, design for manufacture, industrial design, software architecture, real-time control and design of force-controlled arms, actuators, hands and humanoids.
Consumer-facing spaces are dynamic, crowded, and highly unpredictable, requiring robots to safely navigate around constantly changing obstacles, operate in diverse lighting conditions, navigate narrow passages and cluttered spaces, integrate with existing infrastructure, and balance autonomy with safety. As robots move beyond warehouses and other controlled environments and into everyday life, solving these navigation challenges will be critical to achieving broad consumer acceptance and large-scale deployment.
