From the barn to the bar: AI powered robots
In this episode, we talk to Matt Casella from Richtech Robotics about the Adam bartending robot, and then to Chris Padwick from John Deere about creating vision models for spraying weeds in the field. Both interviews occurred during the NVIDIA GTC24 event in March, and both companies leverage NVIDIA technology in their robotic solutions.
Richtech Robotics: https://www.richtechrobotics.com/
John Deere Autonomous Solutions: https://www.deere.com/en/sprayers/see-spray/
Show Timeline
23:54 Interview with Matt Casella, CEO of Richtech Robotics
44:14 Interview with Chris Padwick, Director of Machine Vision Learning, from John Deere
News from the week
This week, Boston Dynamics unveiled the electric Atlas humanoid robot
On Tuesday this week, Boston Dynamics retired the previous version of Atlas after about 15 years of development. It paved the way for numerous other humanoid robots. As many of you have probably seen on YouTube, Atlas was surprisingly agile, given its hydraulics and bulk. In fact, Atlas won an RBR50 award for its demonstration of running and delivering tools at a simulated construction site at Boston Dynamics’ Waltham headquarters. At the same time, the company has not been shy about showing the many falls and missteps on the way to successful bipedal locomotion and increasingly dexterous manipulation.
On Wednesday, Boston Dynamics announced a new, all-electric version intended for eventual commercial use.
Mentee Robotics decloaks and unveils Mentee humanoid robot
Mentee Robotics came out of stealth today and unveiled its first bipedal humanoid robot prototype. An experienced team founded the Herzliya, Israel company in 2022. It includes Prof. Amnon Shashua, the chairman of Mentee Robotics, an expert in AI, computer vision, natural language processing and other related fields.
The company‘s founders also include Prof. Lior Wolf, the CEO of Mentee Robotics and formerly a research scientist and director at Facebook AI Research, and Prof. Shai Shalev-Shwartz, a computer scientist and machine learning researcher.
Locus Robotics surpasses 3B picks just 33 weeks after its last milestone
Locus Robotics Corp. today announced that it has surpassed 3 billion total picks across its global customer deployments. The company reached this milestone just 33 weeks after it recorded its 2 billionth pick. It claimed that the achievement underscores its continued rapid growth and solidifies its position as a leader in autonomous robotics automation for the warehouse.
BREAKING STORY: CA Committee Passes Autonomous Vehicle Ban Legislation
On Wednesday, the California Senate Committee on Local Government passed autonomous vehicle legislation (SB 915) allowing local municipalities to ban and tax AV deployment. Last year was one of California’s deadliest for roadway fatalities, largely because of human behaviors including distracted driving, drunk driving, and speeding. The legislation by Sen. Cortese takes control away from state-level agencies like the DMV and California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) which have approved the rollout of safe autonomous vehicles.
