Renault Group has made a minority investment in Wandercraft, which is said to be “the first company to develop, manufacture and market medical self-balancing exoskeletons”.
Building on its strong expertise in powerful and reliable exoskeletons, Wandercraft has developed an advanced platform for uses such as manufacturing.
Moreover, Wandercraft describes its exoskeleton as a “humanoid robot”, and the (main) picture supplied with the press release shows the exoskeleton apparently working alone in a warehouse of some sort.
While we are not yet sure if this exoskeleton can accurately be described as a humanoid robot, Wandercraft’s technology and business could well develop in that direction.
Renault Group says its investment is together with Wandercraft’s existing shareholders and new investors.
Through a commercial partnership agreement, Renault Group and Wandercraft aim to ensure the development of Calvin, a range of “next generation robots”, firstly for industrial uses.
Calvin will allow Renault Group to relieve its workers from painful and non-ergonomics tasks, while reducing production time and thus gaining on productivity.
At a later stage, this partnership will also include the industrialization of robots and exoskeletons by Renault Group in order to reduce costs through design-to-cost and scaling – two disciplines in which the automotive industry is well recognized.
This will help Wandercraft to bring its new exoskeleton Eve on the market and open new business opportunities in robotics.
Thierry Charvet, chief industry and quality officer at Renault Group, says: “This partnership with Wandercraft is a forward-looking move.
“It will allow us to accelerate on automation and to develop robots for our specific auto industrial use, giving us the opportunity to concentrate our people on more value-adding tasks and alleviate operators from painful and non-ergonomics duties.
“It will drive productivity through the acceleration of production time and costs’ reduction.
“In the end, it makes a lot of sense to combine Wandercraft’s unique expertise and technology in exoskeletons and robots, with Renault Group’s strong industrial capacity and design-to-cost know-how to bring the production of robots at scale.”
Matthieu Masselin, CEO and co-founder of Wandercraft, says: “Renault Group’s investment marks a defining moment for Wandercraft.
“This partnership will boost our ability to build and scale high-impact, low-cost robotics that improve the everyday lives of real people – whether it’s helping individuals with disabilities walk or supporting industrial workers through automation — on the factory floor, in clinics and at home.
“We’re proud to combine our technology with Renault Group’s industrial excellence to deliver the next generation of mobile robotics.”
