A startup company in the US, founded by a group of computer and artificial intelligence experts, claims to have launched the world’s first cloud robotics platform which can be made to work with any industrial robot or device.
Tend.ai says its cloud environment – which is being offered as an online software-as-a-service, on a monthly subscription basis – can connect and work with any brand of robot and can also hook up such things as smartphones and other devices, such as webcams.
This means that any brand of robots can be made to do any number and variety of tasks – the data for which is stored in the cloud – without having to be tended to by a human. The group have demonstrated the system by programming the robots to perform 3D printing tasks.
In exclusive comments to Robotics and Automation News, Mark Silliman, CEO, says the company has been in “stealth mode” for some time (possibly because of paranoia about security) and this information is only being released now.
Silliman says: “Tend.ai makes cloud robotics for machine tending a reality. It’s compatible with both Universal Robots and Rethink robots, as well as many more soon.” [Read more…] about Tend claims ‘world’s first’ hardware-agnostic cloud platform for industrial robots