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The RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards have honored business leaders for the previous 12 years. And now we’re taking the RBR50 to the following degree.

We launched three new classes in 2024 – Robotic of the Yr, Software of the Yr, and Startup of the Yr – and will likely be holding the inaugural RBR50 Gala on Might 1 from 6-8 PM on the finish of Day 1 of the Robotics Summit & Expo. The RBR50 Gala presents an opportunity to attach with the world’s main robotics innovators. It’s additionally a night of celebration to honor main roboticists and their spectacular achievements.

“The unimaginable work of this 12 months’s RBR50 winners represents the chopping fringe of robotics and raises the bar for the business, stated Steve Crowe, Government Editor, Robotics, WTWH Media. “We look ahead to celebrating the entire innovators on the inaugural RBR50 Gala in the course of the Robotics Summit & Expo. Congratulations to the RBR50.”

Listed below are some highlights and tendencies from this 12 months’s winners.

Digit is Robotic of the Yr

2023 was the 12 months of humanoids, and Agility Robotics has taken an early lead with business trials. The corporate’s Digit humanoid stole the present at ProMAT, the place it demonstrated its capability to choose up totes from a shelf, stroll over to a conveyor, and place the totes onto the conveyor.

Later in 2023, Agility introduced pilots with two main prospects to carry out an analogous job: Amazon and GXO Logistics, which claims to be the world’s largest pure-play contract logistics supplier. Digit is 5 ft, 9 in. (175 cm) tall, weighs 143 lb. (64.8 kg), and may carry as much as 35 lb. (15.8 kg).

Digit’s potential flexibility offers it an edge over different sorts of robots, together with autonomous cellular robots (AMRs) with prime modules.

Autopicker wins Software of the Yr

Cincinnati-based Brightpick, which spun out of Photoneo, was named the inaugural Software of the Yr winner. In 2023, Brightpick unveiled Autopicker, which it stated is the primary commercially accessible AMR that may decide and consolidate orders immediately in warehouse aisles.

Autopicker combines a cellular platform, a robotic arm, machine imaginative and prescient, and synthetic intelligence for e-commerce success. The modern system’s patented two-tote design allows it to retrieve orders from bins on shelving and decide objects to one in all its totes. This reduces the necessity for associates to spend time touring with carts.

Electrical Sheep named Startup of the Yr

San Francisco-based Electrical Sheep’s distinctive enterprise mannequin permits it to usher in income because it takes its time deploying its know-how. This enterprise mannequin led to it being named Startup of the Yr.

Electrical Sheep develops autonomous robots for outside upkeep. As an alternative of promoting or leasing the robots to business landscaping companies, Electrical Sheep is turning into vertically built-in by buying landscaping firms. This permits it to get to understand how these companies function and the place the robots can greatest be deployed whereas nonetheless bringing in income.

Since implementing this technique, Electrical Sheep stated it has grown income by eight occasions. Final 12 months, the corporate acquired 4 landscaping companies.

RBR50 winners innovate in a number of areas

This 12 months’s RBR50 demonstrated the rising relevance of generative AI to robotics. The provision of huge language fashions (LLMs) like OpenAI’s ChatGPT is making new breakthroughs doable. For instance, Sereact launched PickGPT, a robotics transformer that mixes LLMs with the corporate’s pc imaginative and prescient know-how to create distinctive pick-and-place robots that use pure language.

Different notable winners embrace Harvard College’s improvement of a mushy exoskeleton that helped a 73-year-old man with Parkinson’s stroll with out freezing. And Seattle-based startup Glidance developed a robotic that provides autonomous mobility help for the visually impaired.

To study extra concerning the RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards 2024, peruse the winner profiles beneath.

RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards 2024