Robotics

BrainCorp
With crippling staff shortages across numerous industries, the role of robots and automation in our workplaces is becoming increasingly important. But are they taking jobs away from humans or filling essential labour gaps and keeping industry safely on the rails?A recent study by IBM showed that AI-driven intelligent automation in the retail sector alone will leap from 40 percent usage to more than 80 percent in the next three years. Experts have staked out a variety of positions on the intersection of adoption, employment, and job security. For the moment, aided by a tight labor market and automation trends coming out of the pandemic, the pendulum seems to have swung toward automation’s role as a driver of overall economic growth. But will that trend last?I recently virtually sat down with Michel Spruijt, Senior Vice President of International Business at Brain Corp, a robotics automation company that helps power the largest fleet of autonomous mobile cleaning robots in the world. It has seen 400% year on year growth in the use of robots in Europe alone. Michel, is an industry insider and works for an automation firm, so it makes sense that he’s bullish on automation for the foreseeable future. However he also has some remarkably keen insights on the robot/human worker dynamic and speaks regularly with leaders from across retail, logistics, transport, education, and healthcare about how they view the ideal balance between automation/robotics and human teams.GN: How have you seen perception of automation solutions change over the pandemic among the general public?Michel Spruijt: Among the general public, robots have always been a sign of innovation and “coolness” when seen in public. What has changed is that now people also recognize robots as necessary and useful – contributing real value to certain operations such as cleaning floors. This puts companies in a great position to leverage robots as they can capitalize on the added productivity and brand value. A common misconception that is lessening amongst the general public is the idea that robots take jobs away from humans. In today’s business landscape where companies face high levels of job shortages and overburdened teams are asked to get more done with less resources, robots can lend a helping hand to immediately fill in gaps. The negative effects of staff shortages are being felt by all of us and robots are recognized as an innovative solution. 

GN: How about among industry — what kind of adoption patterns are we seeing in retail, logistics, transport, education, and healthcare? What accounts for that?Michel Spruijt: The pandemic has taken automation solutions, and in particular robotics, from nice to haves to must haves. This has resulted in an increase in the deployment and usage of robots. While retail has been a key adopter of BrainOS-powered AMRs, it is not alone in its increased usage over the last year. In fact, we’ve seen usage surge in other verticals like airports, malls, offices, industrial environments, education facilities and hospitals.Increased coverage in square feet – October 1st, 2020, to October 1st, 2021:Retail +40%Airport +69%Mall +113%Offices +138%Industrial +313%Education +426%Hospital +2,500%While we understand robot usage has increased dramatically during the pandemic, we project this overall trend to continue to rise because of the value robots are adding to businesses – driving efficiency, improving safety and bringing cost-savings. We’re excited to see what the future holds.GN: This feels like a moment of transition: Automation is spreading in the industries above but we’re a long way from being fully automated. Where are the growing pains likely to crop up?Michel Spruijt: In many of the industries in which robots are being deployed, high turnover is very common. What this means is that businesses must quickly onboard new employees to continue operations. When onboarding, employees are forced to learn new processes, rules, technologies and more. Several different vendors are rolling out AMR solutions for companies. This gives businesses valuable options, but also creates problems: It’s difficult to be good at building both hardware and software that can operate autonomously, thereby reducing product quality. It introduces far greater operating complexity, including separate management systems, user interfaces, safety standards, data aggregation, and so on. In this siloed environment, companies and their staff would be forced to go through the pains of learning multiple systems.We have chosen a platform-based approach which leverages the same central, cloud-based AI software platform, but works with a diverse set of best-in-class OEMs (original equipment manufacturers): OEMs have years, if not decades, of experience in building very specialized machines to accomplish specific tasks. In our opinion, this approach leads to easier fleet management, better data capture and reporting, and lessens the learning process for current and new employees.This is why we believe developing a unifying platform across robotic solutions is a critical step for removing growing pains and helping companies plan a strategic, long term automation strategy. GN: What can industry do to conscientiously shepherd the transition while doing right by workers?Michel Spruijt: Deploying automation and doing right by workers are not two separate actions. In the majority of cases, deploying automation supports your workforce. Robots are a tool workers can use to get their job done more efficiently and effectively, taking monotonous repetitive tasks that can become overbearing or can be unsafe, off their plates to be more effective at the other valuable parts of their job. GN: What can workers do to prepare for and adapt to this transition?Michel Spruijt: In our view, robotics should be developed with humans in mind, so that using this helpful technology can be accessible to all. We have made the BrainOS user interface incredibly intuitive so that employees of all technical backgrounds can successfully utilize and benefit from the added help robots provide, allowing them to focus on other tasks that only humans are uniquely qualified to do. GN: What will surprise people about automation over the next five years?Michel Spruijt: I think what will surprise people is the amount of value robots can bring to organizations through the data they collect. What we have seen so far from robots is the ability to complete one specific task. Going forward though, robots will be able to complete a multitude of tasks, perhaps the most valuable being the collection of data. For example, what is a cleaning robot today, can become a machine that cleans and collects inventory data, tomorrow. This inventory data can, for example, help retailers understand their stock levels, pricing inaccuracies, and planogram compliance issues, potentially saving retailers a huge amount of money while also helping deliver a better shopping experience to customers.  This is what we are working on now and already have deployments and pilots starting. Over the next 5 years, new streams of sensory data will be collected, further transitioning robots from operationally focused machines, to true mobile IoT platforms.  More

ForwardX
A Beijing-based robotics firm specializing in warehouse and logistics automation recently upped its overall funding to $100 million. ForwardX Robotics, which makes autonomous mobile robots for materials handling, recently announced the completion of its Series C. The funding is part of a broader narrative playing out in China, where the domestic robotics sector has soared thanks to an onshoring push by the government and heavy investment in the country’s tech sector. Since 2016 the country has nearly tripled its output of robots by unit. Meanwhile, Chinese robotics developers have seen more than 40% year-on-year revenue growth.In general, the robotics market is hot right now thanks to heavy demand and labor disruptions partly brought on by COVID-19; however, the growth of the Chinese robotics sector marks a major shift over the past five years globally. China has long been a net importer of foreign industrial robots to support its manufacturing infrastructure, but the Made in China 2025 plan has made domestic automation development a top priority. The trend isn’t exactly new. Back in 2018, Jeremie Capron, Director of Research at ROBO Global, a benchmark index series tracking robotics and AI companies, told us about the brisk pace of growth in Chinese automation: “China is home to the largest and fastest-growing robotics market on earth. Chinese government contracts, such as the Made in China 2025 plan, are fueling R&D into AI technologies and its investments are now rivaling Silicon Valley startups. So far, Chinese activity in robotics and AI is on a rampage and there are no signs of a slowdown in innovation.”If there was any doubt that growth would continue, it can be laid to rest. By some estimates, China now exports more robots than the U.S. ForwardX is illustrative of the trend. Only 7 months after the close of its $63-million Series B round, the latest round of funding brings ForwardX to approximately $100 million in total investment since its founding in 2016.”Our latest round of funding contributes to the positive momentum we have been building over the past 24 months. With a growing market share across our key territories, we look forward to continuing to deliver transformational results to our current and future customers,” Founder and CEO Nicolas Chee says. “While previously we’ve been focused on the domestic Chinese market, 2021 has brought us more success outside of China. We’re really looking forward to making our solutions available to a wider audience and cementing our position as a dominant player in North and South America, Asia, and Europe.”

Not surprisingly, the company has ambitions to expand and plans to use the new capital in part to increase its deployment capabilities in key markets, such as the US market, and expand its sales reach into new markets. ForwardX is opening an office on the East Coast as well as in Tokyo, which might be read as a shot across the bow of two once-dominant robotics powerhouses.”It’s an exciting time for us and the industry as a whole. COVID-19 made it difficult to expand overseas during 2020, but this year has brought us a lot more success in that regard,” says ForwardX’s COO, Yaxin Guan. “E-commerce in the US has seen its 18-month spike become the new base level resulting in accelerated demand for automation, and, with this round of funding, we’re in a better position to deliver quality solutions to North American customers.”So far the company has deployed fleets of autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) to partners like JD Logistics, SF DHL Supply Chain China, TCL Electronics, ITOCHU Logistics China, and Dongfeng Motor Corporation. LinkedIn China dubbed ForwardX a Top 13 Startup. More

For a while now, those who track robotics development have taken note of a quiet revolution in the sector. While self-driving cars have grabbed all the headlines, the work happening at the intersection of AI, machine vision, and machine learning is fast becoming the foundation for the next phase of robotics.By combining machine vision with learning capabilities, roboticists are opening a wide range of new possibilities like vision-based drones, robotic harvesting, robotic sorting in recycling, and warehouse pick and place. We’re finally at the inflection point: The moment where these applications are becoming good enough to provide real value in semi-structured environments where traditional robots could never succeed.To discuss this exciting moment and how it’s going to fundamentally change the world we live in, I connected with Pieter Abbeel, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is also the director of the Berkeley Robot Learning Lab and co-director of the Berkeley AI Research lab. He is co-founder and Chief Scientist of Covariant and host of the excellent The Robot Brains podcast.In other words, he’s got robotics bon fides, and what he says about the near future of automation is nothing short of astounding.GN: You call AI Robotics a quiet revolution. Why is it revolutionary and why do you think recent developments are still under the radar, at least in popular coverage?For the past sixty years, we’ve had physically highly capable robots.  However, they just weren’t that smart. So these physically highly capable robots ended up constrained to factories — mostly car and electronics factories — where they were trusted to execute carefully pre-programmed motions. These robots are very reliable at doing the same thing over and over. They create value, but it’s barely scratching the surface of what robots could do with better intelligence. The quiet revolution is occurring in the area of artificial intelligence (AI) Robotics. AI robots are empowered with sophisticated AI models and vision. They can see, learn, and react to make the right decision based on the current situation. 

Popular coverage of robotics trends towards home-butler style robots and self-driving cars because they’re very relatable to our everyday lives. Meanwhile, AI Robotics is taking off in areas of our world that are less visible but critical to our livelihoods — think e-commerce fulfillment centers and warehouses, farms, hospitals, recycling centers.  All areas with a big impact on our lives, but not activities that the average person is seeing or directly interacting with on a daily basis. GN: Semi-structured environments are sort of the next frontier for robots, which have traditionally been confined to structured settings like factories. Where are we going to see new and valuable robotics deployments in the next year or so?The three big ones I anticipate are warehouse pick and pack operations, recycling sortation, and crop harvesting/care. From a technological point of view, these are naturally in the striking range of recent AI developments. And also personally, I know people working on AI Robotics in each of those industries and they are making great strides.GN: Why is machine vision one of the most exciting areas of development in robotics? What can robots now do that they couldn’t do, say, five years ago?Traditional robotic automation relied on very clever engineering to allow pre-programmed-motion robots to be helpful.  Sure, that worked in car and electronics factories, but ultimately it’s very limiting.  Giving robots the gift of sight completely changes what’s possible.  Computer Vision, the area of AI concerned with making computers and robots see, has undergone a night-and-day transformation over the past 5-10 years — thanks to Deep Learning.  Deep Learning trains large neural networks (based on examples) to do pattern recognition, in this case pattern recognition enabling understanding of what’s where in images.  And then Deep Learning, of course, is providing capabilities beyond seeing.  It allows for robots to also learn what actions to take to complete a task, for example, pick and pack an item to fulfill an online order.GN: A lot of coverage over the past decade has focused on the impact of sensors on autonomous systems (lidar, etc). How is AI reframing the conversation in robotics development?Before Deep Learning broke onto the scene, it was impossible to make a robot “see” (i.e. understand what’s in an image).  Consequently, in the pre-Deep Learning days, a lot of energy and cleverness went into researching alternative sensor mechanisms.  Lidar is indeed one of the popular ones (how it works is that you send a laser beam out, measure how long it takes to get reflected, and then multiply by speed of light to determine distance to the nearest obstacle in that direction).  Lidar is wonderful when it works, but the failure modes can’t be discounted (e.g., Does the beam always make it back to you? Does it get absorbed by a black surface? Does it go right through a transparent surface? etc..).  But in a camera image, we humans can see what’s there, so we know the information has been captured by the camera, we just need a way for the computer or robot to be able to extract that same information from the image.  AI advances, specifically Deep Learning, has  completely changed what’s possible in that regard.  We’re on a path to build AI that can interpret images as reliably as humans can, as long as the neural networks have been shown enough examples.  So there is a big shift in robotics from focusing on inventing dedicated sensory devices to focusing on building the AI that can learn and empower our robots using the natural sensory inputs already available to us, especially cameras.GN: Robotics has always been a technology of confluences. In addition to AI and machine vision, what technologies have converged to make these deployments possible?Indeed, any robotic deployment requires a confluence of many great components and a team that knows how to make them all work together.  Besides AI there is, of course, the long-existing technology of reliable industrial grade manipulator robots.  And, crucially, there are cameras and computers, which are ever becoming better and cheaper.GN: What’s going to surprise people about robots over the next five years?The magnitude at which robots are contributing to our everyday lives, most often without seeing any of these robots.  Indeed, we likely won’t personally see the robots physically interacting with the things we use everyday but there will be a day soon in which the majority of the items in our household were touched by a robot at least once before reaching us. More

Serve Robotics
An autonomous sidewalk delivery company is announcing the closing of a seed funding round with some big backers. Serve Robotics joins a rapidly expanding list of autonomous delivery developers wooing investors with the notion of robots conducting last mile deliveries in urban and suburban areas.The autonomous delivery ecosystem has been fun to watch, and the name of the game is strategic commercial alliances. We could be heading for a turf war as big food service providers and existing delivery providers all try to get an early edge in last mile autonomous delivery.Participation from strategic investors in this round is telling. Backers include Uber Technologies, Delivery Hero backed DX Ventures, and Wavemaker Partners’ food automation focused venture studio Wavemaker Labs. Also participating is 7-Eleven Inc.’s corporate venture arm, 7-Ventures, LLC. The convenience store innovator is leaning hard into autonomous delivery.”Our vision at 7-Eleven is to be the first choice for convenience – anytime, anywhere. We are redefining convenience by delivering innovative shopping solutions to our customers,” says Raghu Mahadevan, 7-Eleven SVP and Chief Digital Officer. “This collaboration will allow us to continue our 94-year legacy of innovation and expand our last mile delivery capabilities to make 7NOW more affordable, sustainable and accessible for everyone.”The autonomous delivery space is growing rapidly as the focus has begun shifting from technology development and proof of concept to scaling and dealmaking. Many of these technology companies are operating on an as-a-service model, and securing partners with existing customer bases and brand recognition is the quickest way to scale. Serve Robotics designs, develops and operates zero-emissions rovers that serve people in public spaces, starting with food delivery. Founded in 2017 as the robotics division of Postmates, Serve spun off as an independent company in early 2021. The new round extends Serve’s previous seed funding raise and predictably will be used to accelerate the company’s path to commercial scale, driving its fleet expansion, geographic growth, and continued product development. Most recently, Serve announced its first partnership with UberEats.”Serve Robotics is pleased to have the backing of strong strategic partners able to support our intention to provide sustainable, self-driving delivery at scale,” says Dr. Ali Kashani, Co-founder and CEO of Serve Robotics. “This initial round of financial and strategic support will allow us to continue advancing our technology, growing our team, and expanding our partnership platform.”

All of this tracks closely with the strategic alliances being formed across the sector. Other autonomous delivery companies maneuvering for market share include Starship Technologies, which is expanding its reach across college campuses, Nuro, which also recently partnered with 7-Eleven, and Refraction AI, which closed a round of funding this year, to name just a few players. More

SwissDrones
The ocean is a lawless frontier. Anyone who follows Ian Urbina’s excellent series knows that crime abounds on the high seas and often goes unpunished.The factors contributing to lawlessness are complex and difficult to parse, but one issue is strictly logistical. The ocean is big and dangerous and it’s not an easy place to monitor. Two UAV technology companies are joining forces to demonstrate that drones can be part of the solution.SwissDrones, a company that develops, manufactures and operates long-range unmanned helicopter systems for commercial and public safety applications, and CLS, which specializes in satellite-based monitoring and surveillance, recently completed a demonstration in the open ocean utilizing a SwissDrones unmanned helicopter. The helicopter was launched from aboard the Bourbon Offshore ship Argonaute to demonstrate how Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) can complete Earth Observation Systems and serve as complementary tools in the overall surveillance chain for monitoring oceans over extended periods and across large areas. Also read: Watch these autonomous drones zip through the woods”Drones are a complementary asset in the overall surveillance process,” says Ulrich Amberg, CEO of SwissDrones. “They enhance maritime situational awareness with additional sources of data and make operations safer for coastal authorities during hazardous conditions.”The applications for such a chain of surveillance and monitoring could include search and rescue, pollution monitoring, and monitoring for traffickers and pirates. The drone itself, SDO 50 VTOL, is a robust helicopter with two intermeshing blades with opposing rotations. The platform enables long-range missions in adverse weather conditions, as well as relatively high payload capacity (45 kg/99 lbs, including fuel). Much smaller and cheaper than a manned helicopter, the UAV can be launched from a ship and autonomously run patterns in wide perimeters without risking the lives of onboard crew.The demonstration combined the in-the-air surveillance with a mesh of satellite surveillance to give decision makers on the ground a robust set of data for decision making. 

“CLS has been an expert in the field of maritime surveillance and security for more than 30 years, with no less than 400 satellites available to support national sovereignty and security at sea.  CLS’s collaboration with SwissDrones adds a further stone to the decision-making tool available to maritime authorities. With this new UAV, we complete the arsenal of safety at sea that we offer. We are very happy to collaborate with Swissdrones. Together,  we ensure the reliability of our operations, which is a guarantee for the future.” says Nadia Maaref, Director of Maritime Security at CLS.The question, of course, is whether adoption of such a system, even given its cost efficiencies compared to manned surveillance, is practical or likely in countries that have been ineffective thus far at monitoring their oceans. As Urbina frequently points out in his writing, much of the problem of lawlessness at sea comes down to an unwillingness of governments to engage in law enforcement nearshore and offshore. As is frequently the case, technological development can at best be a partial solution in a complicated global problem. More

DroneUp
A new acquisition in the drone services sector may be instrumental in moving the commercial and recreational drone industries significantly toward broader adoption. DroneUp, a delivery drone provider, is acquiring AirMap, which makes the most comprehensive airspace management software solution in the world.The news is important as drone operations will soon hit tens of thousands of flights per day, which is beyond human scale air traffic control operations. As airspace becomes more congested, autonomous drones need to be navigated separately, safely, and at broad scale to deconflict with one another and with manned aviation. DroneUp, which focuses on drone delivery services, is particularly interested in offering streamlined air traffic control for its delivery partners and to aid regulators in adopting drone delivery infrastructure. The aim for DroneUp and others in the space is to provide ability for companies to employ drones to deliver goods, medicines, and medications beyond line of sight, over people and at night, and do so safely. “We’ve integrated with the best aerospace teams to bring drone delivery and flight services to market faster and more economically with our patented flight management software, and now the industry’s number one UTM solution,” explains DroneUp CEO Tom Walker. “We believe DroneUp has a moral obligation to continue investment in and expansion of the AirMap platform. We will ensure this resource remains openly available to the drone industry, municipalities, and the FAA.”DroneUp recently entered into a partnership with Walmart to offer drone delivery to consumers from a growing network of drone airports, called DroneUp “Hubs.” It’s easy to imagine how integration of a comprehensive air management system into the offering helps DroneUp consolidate its position as an end-to-end service provider, particularly amid the drone sector’s evolving compliance and regulatory landscape. AirMap has been out front working with the FAA on adoption of its platform for years.”Not only is AirMap a UTM company, they are also a global leader in digital automated air traffic management (ATM) with a best-in-class market share, geographic footprint, and seamless platform technology that supports stakeholders across several ecosystems,” says John Vernon, DroneUp’s CTO and representative to the FAA’s Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC). “Transformative advances in technology are driving positive change for society, fueling decarbonization, de-congestion, and the democratization of transportation. UTM is a key enabler to high-density drone and urban air mobility (UAM) operations while unlocking autonomy and flight safety at scale. We look forward to continuing positive innovation.”The acquisition is being closely watched in the industry — both of these companies are sector and the consolidation marks an important milestone in the commercial drone landscape. DroneUp operates commercially throughout the U.S. and is an authorized government drone services provider for 13 states serving public sector organizations. It has more than 190 active waivers and authorizations with the FAA. AirMap is one of three UTM providers currently deployed internationally and provides UTM in Switzerland with a geographic footprint and customer base stretching from North America to Europe, Southeast Asia, and Australia. More

Nuro

Innovation

Autonomous delivery company Nuro and 7-Eleven just launched what they’re billing as the first autonomous commercial delivery service in the state of California. The launch capitalizes on Nuro’s receipt of a deployment permit from the California DMV, the first for an AV company.Like most autonomous delivery testbeds and deployments, the rollout is decidedly modest, but it could portend a near future in urban and suburban areas. Residents of Mountain View, CA, can now order items through 7-Eleven’s 7NOW delivery app and receive them via Nuro’s autonomous vehicles. The new service will begin with Nuro’s self-driving Priuses and later introduce its R2, the company’s occupantless autonomous delivery vehicles custom built to transport products and goods.”Our first foray into autonomous delivery was in 2016 when 7-Eleven became the first retailer in the U.S. to make a drone delivery to a customer’s house,” says Raghu Mahadevan, 7-Eleven Chief Digital Officer. “Since then, we haven’t stopped looking for ways to redefine convenience for our customers inside and outside the four walls of our stores. Fast forward to 2021, and we are pushing the boundaries of innovation even further to provide customers with the first commercial autonomous delivery service in California. I can’t wait to see where we go from here.”Overall, the market for autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) and autonomous ground vehicles (AGVs) is forecasted to generate over $10bn by 2023, according to Interact Analysis. That prediction relies on data from before the COVID-19 pandemic. Enterprising companies like Starship Technologies have launched pilot programs in controlled access spaces, such as college campuses. Delivery robot developers, in particular, are capitalizing on touchless fulfillment trends associated with the pandemic.In December 2020, Nuro achieved a milestone by becoming the first autonomous vehicle company to receive a deployment permit from the CA DMV. The company seems to be rapidly pivoting from development into deployment, particularly in the southwest. Nuro recently announced a $40 million investment to develop its two newest facilities — an end-of-line manufacturing facility and a world-class closed-course test track. The company has already partnered with some of the country’s biggest brands, including Kroger and CVS.”Residents in the state of California — a major hub of innovation — have never been able to experience the commercial delivery of goods by an autonomous vehicle. Nuro is teaming up with 7-Eleven to change that,” says Jiajun Zhu, Nuro CEO and Co-Founder. “We’ve always wanted to bring Nuro’s autonomous delivery to our local community and to our neighbors. We couldn’t be more excited to do this with an iconic neighborhood store like 7-Eleven in our hometown, Mountain View.” More

A robot-powered mobile pizzeria is set to launch in Los Angeles in 2022. We’ve heard this idea before — pair robot-created pizza with mobile delivery — and it ended in disaster. Will this version take off?

Innovation

It just might, and the timing could be a key ingredient. It’s often the case that being first to the party isn’t advantageous. Zume Pizza, once reportedly valued at a somewhat ludicrous $2+ billion, learned that lesson the hard way, closing up its robotic pizza business in early 2020 and laying off more than 100 employees.But where Zume’s lofty ambitions of becoming an efficiency-obsessed logistics enterprise, something akin to the Amazon of pizza, led to a burn rate that topped $10 million per day, new outfits and old favorites are taking a more measured approach to technology-enhanced pizza and doing so in a post-COVID-19 pandemic environment that’s shifted the quick-serve industry on its access. That includes developers like Piestro, which makes a made-to-order pizza vending machine, and even sector staples like Little Caesars, which recently patented a pizza-making robot.The latest example is the robotics-powered mobile pizza restaurant, Stellar Pizza, which recently announced it will launch in the emerging tech hub of Los Angeles in Spring 2022. The company is the brainchild of former SpaceX engineer turned CEO Benson Tsai. SpaceX alums make up the engineering team, as well, and the recipes are partly the creation of former SpaceX Executive Chef and Director of Culinary Services Ted Cizma. The idea is to use cutting-edge technology and advanced robotics to revolutionize pizza prep and delivery. With its new pizza machine, Stellar Pizza can create a fully baked pizza in under five minutes at a production rate of a pizza every 45 seconds. The robot is part of a food truck concept that can deliver a larger quantity of fresh, gourmet pizzas more consistently than its brick-and-mortar counterparts. Sound familiar?The business model isn’t far off from Zume’s, except that Zume’s ambitions caused it to topple. Zume attracted $375 million from SoftBank’s Vision Fund and began to scale with great technology before having a viable business plan. The company also missed the biggest boon to the food delivery sector since wax-lined paper containers: a global pandemic that in one swoop eliminated in-person dining for much of the world for a long stretch and attuned consumers to an obsessiveness with sterile preparation practices.Enter the robots. Developers have been doing backflips, and early entrants into the automated food prep space, including the creators of Flippy, the burger-making robot, are hitting an adoption stride that would have seemed unlikely not long ago. Salad-making vending machines and autonomous ground robots delivering takeout are now a reality, albeit a nascent reality confined for the time being to smaller testbeds. In that light, Zume’s flop in January 2020 might seem a bit like that video of the marathon runner collapsing just before the finish line. 

For Stellar, the robotic pizza-making process starts with a freshly prepared ball of raw pizza dough, which gets pressed and shaped into a round pizza crust. Then, house-made sauce and fresh toppings are added. Lastly, the raw pizza is inserted into one of four high-temperature custom-designed ovens to bake to perfection. In other words, it’s exactly how you’d make a pizza if you were a human; a robot just does it. There’s nothing particularly unsettling or unexpected in the idea of automating a repeatable, high-output process. Frankly, the guy with flour all over his arms twirling a pie at a creosote ceiling is a bigger head-scratcher. That’s why robotic pizza production is a good idea, one that’s bound to take off sooner rather than later. Whether Stellar — or any company — emerges as a revolutionizing player in a sector that seems to be doing pretty well remains to be seen. Pizza production will almost certainly benefit from new technology. But the pizza game probably doesn’t need a new unicorn.  More