In Episode 160 of The Robot Report Podcast, editors Mike Oitzman and Eugene Demaitre discuss the latest news. On today’s show, we also have a conversation with Touraj Parang, president and chief operating officer of Serve Robotics, about its expansion of service in Hollywood.
The featured interview this week is a replay of editor Steve Crowe’s fireside chat with Ujjwal Kumar at the 2024 Robotics Summit & Expo in Boston. Kumar is group president of Teradyne Robotics, the parent company of Mobile Industrial Robots and collaborative robotics leader Universal Robots. He talks about his time leading the robotics group and where he thinks the industry is going.
Show timeline
- 5:07 – News of the week
- 15:53 – Interview with Touraj Parang of Serve Robotics
- 31:22 – Keynote session from the Robotics Summit & Expo with Ujjwal Kumar of Teradyne Robotics
News of the week
The Federal Aviation Administration has granted permission to Wing and Zipline to conduct BVLOS flights in the same airspace. Also, DroneUp has made 500 deliveries in a single day.
In its Q2 earnings call, Asensus Surgical said that if its merger with Karl Storz fails, it will have to declare bankruptcy. The company, originally known as TransEnterix, has developed the Hugo robot-assisted surgical platform.
Kimberley Losey, the new CEO of Rapid Robotics, explained how advances in AI can accelerate accurate robotic picking. Last month, the San Francisco-based company promoted her from chief growth officer to CEO, as founder Jordan Kretchmer moved into the executive chairman role.
Losey has experience from Hasbro, Autodesk, and other companies that help her bring a product-oriented go-to-market strategy in a rare pivot from robotics as a service (RaaS).
Serve Robotics has announced that it is delivering meals from Shake Shack in the Hollywood area, via their partnership with UberEats.