Softbank-Backed Brain Corp. Expands Its Robot "Brain" Beyond Floor Cleaning To Autonomous Delivery
Brain Corp., a Softbank-backed firm that makes autonomous systems for robotic floor cleaners, said today that it was expanding into the robotic delivery space. As a first step, the San Diego-based company introduced a proof-of-concept delivery robot, powered by its software brain, called BrainOs, which is capable of towing carts in factories, warehouses and stores. It expects to launch commercially early next year.
Eugene Izhikevich, Brain's cofounder and CEO, told Forbes that the launch is of one of many types of robots that he hopes to enable with BrainOS with help from the company's venture capital funding, which now totals $125 million. "It is my dream to have hundreds of robots in a very short period of time," said Izhikevich, a 51-year-old computational neuroscientist, who worked in academia before starting the company. "Launching one per year may not satisfy my dream. I'm too impatient."
Brain gained attention late last year when Walmart agreed to roll out 360 floor-scrubbing robots enabled by the BrainOS operating system in its stores.
The market for commercial floor-cleaning equipment is large—estimated at roughly $5 billion a year globally—and macroeconomic forces favor the adoption of autonomous solutions. Last month, Forbes profiled startup Avidbots, based near Toronto, whose young immigrant founders have built commercial floor-cleaning robots from scratch and sold a few hundred of them to be deployed in airports and shopping centers.
Also at TechCrunch.
Previously: Walmart to Introduce Floor-Mopping Robots; Amazon Wants to Sell Alcohol at Cashierless Store
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Saturday April 06 2019, @09:05AM (1 child)
Can it fight, and beat, muggers?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 06 2019, @02:07PM
Recent testing of the Jussie Smollett "Subway Sandwich Delivery Model" did not experience a positive outcome. Apparently it needs a few adjustments.