October 17, 2024
General purpose foundation models, such as ChatGPT, have demonstrated how general-purpose models trained on diverse datasets can outperform narrowly tailored specialist models, even on tasks those specialized models are specifically designed for. Can the same transformation happen in robotics? In this presentation, I will discuss how foundation models for end-to-end control of robotic systems can be built, how we can gather large and diverse datasets for such systems, and how they can enable new and exciting robotic capabilities.
Renowned roboticist Claire Delaunay will share her insights into the current and future state of robotics and various enabling technologies. She’ll also discuss her career journey, what it takes to build and scale startups and products, and the future of autonomous farming.
Traditional medical device development often faces significant challenges, including time-consuming animal testing, high costs, and ethical concerns. In Silico Medicine offers a transformative solution by leveraging advanced computational models and simulations to create virtual human environments. This innovative approach enables researchers to conduct comprehensive and controlled testing, exploring a wider range of scenarios than would be possible with physical experiments.
By replacing physical testing with digital simulations, we can significantly reduce development time, costs, and ethical concerns. In Silico Medicine empowers researchers to optimize device design, enhance safety, and accelerate time-to-market. This revolutionary technology is poised to revolutionize the medical device development process, bringing innovative solutions to patients more quickly and efficiently.
In this presentation, Byron Izquierdo will discuss how to develop simple, accessible, and commercially viable robotic solutions tailored specifically for emerging economies. These solutions are designed for individuals with lower levels of education, making them easy to implement without the need for advanced technical skills. We will explore success stories in sectors such as education, agriculture, and small-scale industries, where robotics technology has proven transformative. Additionally, we will analyze the key technical features that have made our solutions accessible and user-friendly, ranging from educational kits to industrial robots adapted to the limited resources and local needs of these markets.
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Congratulations! You’ve successfully launched your product, shipping dozens of systems to satisfied customers, and word is spreading that your solution is a gamechanger. However, one question keeps you up at night: as your product continues to gain traction and mass production becomes necessary, how will you deliver? Missing production goals at this stage could be costly, and quality issues could tarnish your brand and alienate your valuable new customers.
Will you ask your engineers to work graveyard and weekend shifts? Will you lease a new building and hire an entirely new manufacturing team? Or does it make more sense to turn to a value-add contract manufacturer who is an expert in quality control, supply chain management, assembly, and testing?
2024 is the year of robotics. AI is set to revolutionize the field, leveraging principles from technologies like ChatGPT to achieve remarkable advancements. Early research suggests that Generative AI (GenAI) and foundation models offer the potential for robots that can reason, adapt, and interact in dynamic environments, enabling them to understand complex tasks and operate autonomously with minimal data.
The primary hurdle to realizing this potential is the need for vast, diverse real-world datasets. Unlike ChatGPT, which was trained on centuries of accumulated text, robotics lacks extensive data sources, and current data collection methods, such as paid teleoperation, are unsustainable. While ideas like using simulation data are valuable, the holy grail is large-scale production deployment of robots in diverse environments and use cases.
Moreover, the inherently non-deterministic nature of AI systems raises concerns about safety and reliability. Failure cases for robots, such as collisions with the environment or people, carry great consequences. Ubiquitous adoption is dependent on implementing guardrails to address this.
Jacobi is building software that makes robot deployments scalable and flexible while ensuring the safety of AI-powered robots. Enabled by recent breakthroughs in motion planning technology, Jacobi’s software is applicable to a wide range of use cases and brings a modern software approach to robotics.
Achieving cm-accurate positioning for autonomous navigation in field robotics has historically been a complex and labor-intensive process. Setting up GNSS-enabled hardware required configuring expensive base stations or wrestling with cryptic NTRIP credentials, each setup tailored to specific locations and equipment. This complexity has been a barrier to scaling field robotics in industries like agriculture, logistics, and infrastructure.
Join Aaron Nathan, CEO of Point One Navigation, for a chat with Mike Oitzman, Editor of The Robot Report, about how using network RTK dramatically increases the ease of use for the end user — by granting access to cm-accurate location with a single click.
The session will also cover key technologies used in high-precision GNSS, including L-Band correction delivery, correction standards, and device provisioning and observability approaches. Discover how network RTK can streamline your operations, reduce costs, and accelerate your go-to-market strategy.
At the core of our ability to achieve our collective destiny and become an interplanetary species is our ability to effectively support human life and exploration in space.
Join Dr. Satoshi Kitano, VP of Hardware Engineering at GITAI, in a discussion of the robotics technologies that are at the forefront of transforming our capabilities to not only reach new planets, but to support human activity while we are there. We will take a deep dive into the state of the space labor industry and highlight the interesting challenges that inhibit our progress towards rapidly expanding into the final frontier. Moreover, we will examine what a labor abundant space industry will look like with robotics at its center.
There are opportunities all around us to enhance our lives by deploying robotics and automation. Many of these opportunities are beyond the bounds of traditional factory automation, and they are very exciting. In the past decade, our industry has seen hundreds of startups and corporate R&D initiatives attempt to tackle this, but very few clear winners have emerged successfully.
Dave Coleman, CEO of PickNik Robotics, will share his observations from consulting with 100+ robotics companies over the past decade about what he’s seen work and not work. From business risks to technology pitfalls, be prepared for some common startup perspectives and unique robotics industry insights. A primary focus will be on applications that leverage robotic arms, but the learnings will be generalizable to mobile robots, drones, and more.
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