The Pransky interview: Dr Raffaello D’Andrea, Founder, CEO, and Chairman of the board at Verity; Entrepreneur; Professor; Scientist and Artist

2022 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanne Pransky

Purpose The following article is a “Q&A interview” conducted by Joanne Pransky of Industrial Robot Journal as a method to impart the combined technological, business and personal experience of a prominent, robotic industry PhD and inventor regarding his pioneering efforts and the commercialization of bringing a technological invention to market. This paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach The interviewee is Dr Raffaello D’Andrea, a highly successful entrepreneur and proven business leader and one of the world’s foremost leaders in robotics and machine learning. D’Andrea is Founder, CEO and Chairman of the Board at Verity, the world’s leading autonomous indoor drone company, as well as a Professor of Dynamic Systems and Control at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich. D’Andrea is also one of the co-founders and advisors of Robo-Global, an index and research company focused on investments in robotics, automation and artificial intelligence. In this interview, D’Andrea shares some of his business and personal experiences of working in industry and academia and his criteria for turning his ideas into successful working systems. Findings Raffaello D’Andrea’s entire career is built on his ability to bridge theory and practice. D’Andrea combined his love for science with his need to create and received a BS degree in engineering science at the University of Toronto, where he was awarded the Wilson Medal as the top graduating student in 1991. He obtained both his MS and PhD degrees in electrical engineering at Caltech, and then he joined the Cornell faculty as an assistant professor. While on leave from Cornell, from 2003 to 2007, he co-founded the disruptive warehouse automation company Kiva Systems, where he led the systems architecture, robot design, robot navigation and coordination, and control algorithms efforts. In 2014, D’Andrea took robotics technology into the air and founded Verity, the world’s first company to deliver a fully integrated autonomous, indoor drone-based system solution. Originality/value Raffaello D’Andrea combines academia, business and the arts to reinvent autonomous systems. D’Andrea was a founding member of the Systems Engineering Program at Cornell, where he established robot soccer as the flagship, multidisciplinary team project. In addition to pioneering the use of semi-definite programming for the design of distributed control systems, he went on to lead the Cornell Robot Soccer Team to win four world international RoboCup championships. Kiva Systems, co-founded by D’Andrea and acquired by Amazon in 2012, helped the re-branded Amazon Robotics to disrupt the entire warehousing and logistics systems industry. Additionally, D’Andrea is an internationally-exhibited new media artist, best known for the Robotic Chair (Ars Electronica, ARCO, London Art Fair, National Gallery of Canada) and Flight Assembled Architecture (FRAC Centre). With his team at Verity, he created the drone design and choreography for Cirque Du Soleil’s Paramour on Broadway, Metallica’s WorldWired Tour and Céline Dion’s Courage Tour. Other D’Andrea creations include the Flying Machine Arena, where flying robots perform aerial acrobatics, juggle balls, balance poles and cooperate to build structures; the Distributed Flight Array, a flying platform consisting of multiple autonomous single propeller vehicles that are able to drive, dock with their peers and fly in a coordinated fashion; the Balancing Cube, a dynamic sculpture that can balance on any of its edges or corners and its little brother Cubli, a small cube that can jump up, balance and walk; Blind Juggling Machines that can juggle balls without seeing them, and without catching them. D’Andrea is also collaborating with scientists, engineers, and wingsuit pilots to create an actively controlled suit that will allow humans to take off and land at will, to gain altitude, even to perch, while preserving the intimacy of wingsuit flight. D’Andrea has received the IEEE Robotics and Automation Award, the Engelberger Robotics Award, the IEEE/IFR Invention and Entrepreneurship Award in Robotics and Automation and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. In 2020, he was inducted in the National Inventors Hall of Fame and elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

Author(s):  
Joanne Pransky

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present a “Q&A interview” conducted by Joanne Pransky of Industrial Robot Journal as a method to impart the combined technological, business and personal experience of a prominent, robotic industry PhD-turned entrepreneur regarding the evolution, commercialization and challenges of bringing a technological invention to market. Design/methodology/approach The interviewee is Dr Aaron Edsinger, a proven entrepreneur and inventor in the field of human-collaborative robotics. Dr Edsinger shares his journey that led him from developing humanoids at Rodney Brooks’ Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT, to cofounding four companies, two of which got purchased by Google. Findings Dr Edsinger received a BS degree in Computer Systems Engineering from Stanford, an MS in Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a PhD in Computer Science from MIT and did post-doctorate research in the Humanoid Robotics Group at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab. He co-founded his first company Meka Robotics in 2007 and that same year, he started his second company, HStar Technologies. In 2011, he cofounded Redwood Robotics, and in 2013, he sold Meka and Redwood to Google. From 2013 to 2017, he was a Robotics Director at Google. In August of 2017, he cofounded Hello Robot Inc. Originality/value Dr Edsinger’s work in robotics grew out of the San Francisco robotic art scene in the 1990s. Since then, he has collaborated and built over a dozen research and artistic robot platforms and has been granted 28 patents. His world-class robotic systems encompass Dr Edsinger’s innovative research in dexterous manipulation in unstructured environments, force controlled compliant actuation, human safe robotics, integrated mechatronic engineering and the design of humanoid robots. Domo, the humanoid robot he built, was named one of Time magazine’s Best Inventions of the Year for 2007. Out of the eight robot companies Google purchased in 2013, two were cofounded by Dr Edsinger. In 2017, Dr Edsinger left Google to cofound his new company, Hello Robot Inc, a stealth mode consumer robot company.


Author(s):  
Joanne Pransky

Purpose – This article is a “Q&A interview” conducted by Joanne Pransky of Industrial Robot Journal as a method to impart the combined technological, business and personal experience of a prominent, robotic industry engineer-turned entrepreneur regarding the evolution, commercialization and challenges of bringing a technological invention to market. Design/methodology/approach – The interviewee is Dr Yoky Matsuoka, the Vice President of Nest Labs. Matsuoka describes her career journey that led her from a semi-professional tennis player who wanted to build a robot tennis buddy, to a pioneer of neurobotics who then applied her multidisciplinary research in academia to the development of a mass-produced intelligent home automation device. Findings – Dr Matsuoka received a BS degree from the University of California, Berkeley and an MS and PhD in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She was also a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT and in Mechanical Engineering at Harvard University. Dr Matsuoka was formerly the Torode Family Endowed Career Development Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington (UW), Director of the National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering and Ana Loomis McCandless Professor of Robotics and Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. In 2010, she joined Google X as one of its three founding members. She then joined Nest as VP of Technology. Originality/value – Dr Matsuoka built advanced robotic prosthetic devices and designed complementary rehabilitation strategies that enhanced the mobility of people with manipulation disabilities. Her novel work has made significant scientific and engineering contributions in the combined fields of mechanical engineering, neuroscience, bioengineering, robotics and computer science. Dr Matsuoka was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in which she used the Genius Award money to establish a nonprofit corporation, YokyWorks, to continue developing engineering solutions for humans with physical disabilities. Other awards include the Emerging Inventor of the Year, UW Medicine; IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Early Academic Career Award; Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers; and numerous others. She leads the development of the learning and control technology for the Nest smoke detector and Thermostat, which has saved the USA hundreds of billions of dollars in energy expenses. Nest was sold to Google in 2013 for a record $3.2 billion dollars in cash.


Author(s):  
Anders Hagstrom ◽  
Walter Schaufelberger

ETH World is a strategic initiative for establishing a new virtual campus at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich. ETH World will provide services in the areas of research, teaching, learning and infrastructure for the established disciplines in technology and natural science at ETH. The initiative aims to develop the excellence of ETH Zurich, making use of the new facilities and infrastructure instruments and methods that technological development offers. It is an integral part of the university, supporting its academic planning, infrastructure and financing processes. In its first part this paper describes the background of ETH World and an international conceptual competition organized in 2000 to seek ideas for the “infostructure” of this new academic environment. Some results of the competition are presented along with other projects that have been launched as building blocks of ETH World. The second part looks in some detail at e-learning as one of the focal points of ETH World, presenting two cases studies in architecture and control engineering education.


AI Magazine ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 113
Author(s):  
Oliver Brock ◽  
Jeff Trinkle ◽  
Fabio Ramos

The conference Robotics: Science and Systems was held at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich Switzerland, from June 25 to June 28, 2008. More than 280 international researchers attended this single track conference to learn about the most exciting robotics research and most advanced robotic systems. The program committee, led by sixteen area chairs, selected 40 papers out of 163 submissions. The program also included seven invited talks and two early career spotlight presentations. The plenary presentations were complemented by thirteen workshops. 


Author(s):  
Joanne Pransky

Purpose The purpose of this paper is a “Q&A interview” conducted by Joanne Pransky of Industrial Robot Journal as a method to impart the combined technological, business and personal experience of a prominent, robotic industry PhD-turned-entrepreneur regarding the evolution, commercialization and challenges of bringing a technological invention to market. Design/methodology/approach The interviewee is Dr Cory Kidd, an inventor, entrepreneur and leading practitioner in the field of human–robot interaction. Dr Kidd shares his 20-year journey of working at the intersection of healthcare and technology and how he applied innovative technologies toward solving large-scale consumer healthcare challenges. Findings Dr Kidd received his BS degree in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology and earned a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow in Computer and Information Science & Engineering. Dr Kidd received his MS and PhD degrees at the MIT Media Lab in human–robot interaction. While there, he conducted studies that showed the psychological and clinical advantages of using a physical robot over screen-based interactions. While finishing his PhD in 2007, he founded his first company, Intuitive Automata, which created interactive coaches for weight loss. Though Intuitive Automata ceased operations in 2013, Dr Kidd harnessed his extensive knowledge of the healthcare business and the experiences from patient engagement and launched Catalia Health in 2014 with a new platform centered specifically around patient behavior change programs for chronic disease management. Originality/value Dr Kidd is a pioneer of social robotics and has developed groundbreaking technology for healthcare applications that combines artificial intelligence, psychology and medical best practices to deliver everyday care to patients who are managing chronic conditions. He holds patents, including one entitled Apparatus and Method for Assisting in Achieving Desired Behavior Patterns and in an Interactive Personal Health Promoting Robot. Dr Kidd was awarded the inaugural Wall Street Journal and Credit Suisse Technopreneur of the Year in 2010, which is meant to “honor the entry that best applies technology with the greatest potential for commercial success”. He is also the Director of Business Development for the nonprofit Silicon Valley Robotics and is an impact partner for Fresco Capital. He consults, mentors and serves as a Board Member and Advisor to several high-tech startups.


Author(s):  
Joanne Pransky

Purpose This paper is a “Q&A interview” conducted by Joanne Pransky of Industrial Robot Journal as a method to impart the combined technological, business and personal experience of a prominent, robotic industry PhD-turned entrepreneur regarding his pioneering efforts of bringing technological inventions to market. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach The interviewee is Dr Matanya Horowitz, Founder and CEO of AMP Robotics, an industrial artificial intelligence (AI) and Robotics Company that automates the identification, sorting and processing of complex waste streams to extract maximum value for their customers. Horowitz discusses how he came to found this groundbreaking company and created disruptive innovations. Findings Horowitz earned four bachelor degrees in electrical engineering, computer science, applied mathematics and economics, as well as a master’s degree in electrical engineering, all from the University of Colorado. He also holds a PhD in control and dynamical systems from the California Institute of Technology with publications and research in control theory, AI, robotic path planning and computer vision. Shortly after finishing his PhD, he founded Louisville, Colorado-based AMP Robotics in 2014 with the mission of changing the fundamental economics of recycling. In the Fall of 2019, AMP raised $16m in Series A funding, led by Sequoia Capital. Originality/value Horowitz developed and commercialized AMP’s breakthrough AI platform, AMP Neuron™ and robotics system, AMP Cortex™, which automates high-speed identification, sorting, picking and processing of material streams. Horowitz was individually recognized as Waste360’s “2019 Innovator of the Year” in addition to being named in their “40 under 40” list. AMP has received numerous awards and gained international recognition, including The Circulars 2018 Award for “Circular Economy Top Tech Disruptor” at the World Economic Forum in Davos, and the NWRA’s (National Waste and Recycling Association) “2017 Innovator of the Year” award.


2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 413-436 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Whitney Gibson ◽  
Jack Deem ◽  
Jacqueline E. Einstein ◽  
John H. Humphreys

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the life and work of Frank Gilbreth using a critical biographical approach to draw connections between his life experiences and the major contributions he made to management history. Design/methodology/approach The research design is critical biography. First, a biography is provided that reveals critical incidents from his childhood, his early career before marriage, his life after his marriage and his key personality traits. Gilbreth’s major contributions to management thought are then considered in context of his biography. Findings Although Frank Gilbreth is recalled for his contributions to management history through his work in advancing efficiency through motion studies, he should likewise be credited for his foresight of management theories related to the human element in organizations. The major influences on Gilbreth’s career include Lillian Gilbreth and Frederick Taylor. Research limitations/implications A limitation of critical biography is that researchers cannot address causality but, rather, are focused on drawing connections between life experiences and significant accomplishments. Originality/value Critical biography can illuminate theory and practice by providing greater clarity by examining concepts in depth and in context. The authors situate Frank Gilbreth’s work in the context of his lived experiences.


Author(s):  
Joanne Pransky

Purpose – PhD/inventor builds consumer robot start-up company based on low-cost, groundbreaking visual simultaneous localization and mapping (vSLAM) visual sensors and NorthStar® navigation technologies that sells for nearly $75 million dollars 12 years later. The following article is a “Q&A interview” conducted by Joanne Pransky of Industrial Robot Journal as a method to impart the combined technological, business, and personal experience of a prominent, robotic industry engineer-turned entrepreneur regarding the evolution, commercialization, and challenges of bringing a technological invention to market. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – This interview was with Dr Paolo Pirjanian, CTO of iRobot Corporation. Dr Pirjanian previously served as both CTO and CEO of Evolution Robotics. Dr Pirjanian received his PhD degree from Aalborg University, Denmark. He has received several honors and awards including the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Early Career Award in 2004 and the Technical Leadership Award from JPL/NASA. Dr Pirjanian holds 67 patents. Findings – The challenges and solutions of transferring technological innovations into an affordable consumer product are presented. The resulting pioneering technologies and approximate 37 patents around vSLAM and NorthStar® were incorporated into Evolution's flagship consumer product, Mint floor cleaning robot. In October 2012, iRobot Corp acquired Evolution for $74 million in an effort to complement their own products and technologies. Originality/value – A robot scientist, in his roles as the CTO and CEO of a robot company, uses a paradigm shift in vision and pattern recognition to build an affordable consumer product and successful company.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Megha G. Krishnan ◽  
Abhilash T. Vijayan ◽  
Ashok S.

Purpose Real-time implementation of sophisticated algorithms on robotic systems demands a rewarding interface between hardware and software components. Individual robot manufacturers have dedicated controllers and languages. However, robot operation would require either the knowledge of additional software or expensive add-on installations for effective communication between the robot controller and the computation software. This paper aims to present a novel method of interfacing the commercial robot controllers with most widely used simulation platform, e.g. MATLAB in real-time with a demonstration of visual predictive controller. Design/methodology/approach A remote personal computer (PC), running MATLAB, is connected with the IRC5 controller of an ABB robotic arm through the File Transfer Protocol (FTP). FTP server on the IRC5 responds to a request from an FTP client (MATLAB) on a remote computer. MATLAB provides the basic platform for programming and control algorithm development. The controlled output is transferred to the robot controller through Ethernet port as files and, thereby, the proposed scheme ensures connection and control of the robot using the control algorithms developed by the researchers without the additional cost of buying add-on packages or mastering vendor-specific programming languages. Findings New control strategies and contrivances can be developed with numerous conditions and constraints in simulation platforms. When the results are to be implemented in real-time systems, the proposed method helps to establish a simple, fast and cost-effective communication with commercial robot controllers for validating the real-time performance of the developed control algorithm. Practical implications The proposed method is used for real-time implementation of visual servo control with predictive controller, for accurate pick-and-place application with different initial conditions. The same strategy has been proven effective in supervisory control using two cameras and artificial neural network-based visual control of robotic manipulators. Originality/value This paper elaborates a real-time example using visual servoing for researchers working with industrial robots, enabling them to understand and explore the possibilities of robot communication.


Author(s):  
Joanne Pransky

Purpose The following paper is a “Q&A interview” conducted by Joanne Pransky of Industrial Robot Journal as a method to impart the combined technological, business and personal experience of a prominent, robotic industry PhD-turned successful innovator and entrepreneur regarding the commercialization and challenges of bringing his technological inventions to market. This paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach Considered one of the top biomechatronics researchers in the world, Dr Hugh Herr heads the MIT Biomechatronics Research Group and Center for Extreme Bionics. His research programs seek to advance technologies that promise to accelerate the merging of body and machine, including device architectures that resemble the body’s musculoskeletal design, actuator technologies that behave like muscle and control methodologies that exploit principles of biological movement. Herr’s methods encompass a diverse set of scientific and technological disciplines that are advancing an emerging field of engineering science that applies principles of biomechanics and neural control to guide the designs of human rehabilitation and augmentative devices. Findings As a teenager, Herr was a highly competitive mountain climber until he had to have both legs amputated below the knees after suffering severe frostbite during a 1982 mountain expedition at the age of 17. As a result of this experience, he directed his efforts and talent to try to improve the mobility of people with disabilities. He graduated in physics in 1990 from the Millersville University (Pennsylvania). He subsequently earned a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1993 and a PhD in Biophysics at Harvard University in 1998. He then was a postdoctoral fellow in medical devices at MIT. He was Assistant Professor at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Harvard Medical School. Since 2000, he has been heading the MIT Biomechatronics Group within the Media Lab and has been Co-directing the Lab’s Center for Extreme Bionics since 2014. To bring his inventions to market, Herr founded a spin-off company out of MIT under the name iWalk in 2007, which was relaunched as BionX Medical Technologies Inc. in 2015, and acquired by Ottobock in 2017. Originality/value Herr is a world leader and inventor in the field of bionics and biomechanics whose research accomplishments have already made a significant impact on physically challenged people. Herr has produced several groundbreaking products, starting with a computer-controlled artificial knee in 2003, called the Rheo Knee™ System and commercialized by Össur Inc. He also designed his own bionic lower legs, the world’s first powered ankle-foot prosthesis to emulate the action of a biological leg and, for the first time, provides amputees with a natural gait. The Empower ankle system is now marketed by Ottobock. He is presently working on NeuroEmbodied Design methodology to restore proprioception to amputees. Herr has received major accolades including the Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Leadership Award (2005), the Heinz Award for Technology, the Economy and Employment (2007) and R&D Magazine’s 14th Innovator of the Year Award (2014) and a No Barriers Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2013 No Barriers Summit. His innovations were listed twice among TIME magazine’s Top Ten Inventions (2004; 2007) and which called him “Leader of the Bionic Age” in 2011. His life story has been told in the book Second Ascent: The Story of Hugh Herr (1991) and in the film Ascent: The Story of Hugh Herr, made in 2002 by National Geographic. He is the author and co-author of more than 150 peer-reviewed papers and patents.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document