One of the traditional hot spots for robots has been warehouses—large facilities that often require moving heavy objects and are usually off-limits to all but authorized personnel, making them a relatively safe space to introduce robots.
But robots these days are taking on tasks in more complex, dynamic, and even dangerous environments. For example, Gecko Robotics robots must perform their inspections in the cramped spaces of ICBM silos and navy ships and submarines, and Nearthlabs drones have to fly up close and personal to wind turbines to check them properly. Stratom’s devices are designed to service military aircraft on busy flight lines that may not be far from front lines. And the Doodle Labs drone-communications systems see use on actual front lines by Ukrainians defending the country against Russia’s invasion.
While Dusty Robotics shouldn’t have to worry about its hardware being shot at, the hard-hat-required realm of construction sites imposes its own challenge to its robots as they mark building layouts on floors. The same goes for Teleo’s remote-control systems, which allow distant humans to drive construction machinery on job sites.
And even inside the more controlled confines of warehouses, room remains for innovation: Symbotic, for example, has optimized its warehouse robots for fast, 24-hour operation in areas walled off from human workers, while Locus Robotics and Agility Robotics have designed theirs to work alongside people—Agility’s hardware is even capable of hearing and responding to spoken instructions from humans. Finally, while Opentrons’s lab robots get to work indoors, there they must perform the delicate work of dealing with micropipettes and cell samples.
1. Symbotic
For speeding up warehouse robots, even if they have to work in the dark
2. Doodle Labs
For networking drones in some of the most hostile conditions imaginable
3. Agility Robotics
4. Locus Robotics
For building warehouse robots that can work alongside, not just in place of, humans.
5. Dusty Robotics
For helping to get construction projects done on budget and on time
6. Gecko Robotics
For going under the hood to inspect power plants, storage tanks, and submarines
7. Nearthlab
For fusing hardware and software to streamline wind-turbine inspections
8. Opentrons
For kick-starting a robot dexterous enough to fill a micropipette
9. Stratom
For putting robots to work on flight lines that are often near front lines
10. Teleo
For extending the utility of construction and mining equipment by getting people out of their cabs
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