Yesterday, Clearpath Robotics of Kitchener, Ont., Canada (and Clearpath’s mobile-logistics robotic division OTTO Motors), introduced that it was being acquired by Milwaukee-based Rockwell Automation for an undisclosed quantity.
The press launch (which comes from Rockwell, not Clearpath) is targeted solely on robotics for industrial purposes. That’s, on OTTO Motors’ Autonomous Cellular Robots (AMRs) within the context of manufacturing logistics. If you happen to check out what Rockwell does, this is sensible, as a result of as an automation firm, they’re not sometimes doing what most of us would consider as “robotics” within the sense that the mechanical programs that they automate don’t do the form of dynamic decision-making that (for my part) distinguishes robots from machines. So, the OTTO Motors AMRs (and the folks at OTTO who get them to autonomously behave themselves) present an essential and forward-looking addition to what Rockwell is ready to provide in an industrial context.
That’s all positive and dandy so far as OTTO Motors goes. What worries me, although, is that there’s zero point out of Clearpath’s well-known and far cherished household of yellow-and-black analysis robots. This contains the Husky UGV
With iRobot, Open Robotics, and now Clearpath all getting partially or wholly subsumed (or consumed?) by different corporations which have their very own priorities, it’s onerous to not be involved about what’s going to occur to those {hardware} and software program platforms (together with Turtlebot and Robotic Working System) which have supplied the basis for a lot robotics analysis and schooling. Clearpath particularly has been a pillar of the ROS neighborhood since there’s been a ROS neighborhood, and it’s unclear how issues are going to vary going ahead.
We’ve reached out to Clearpath to hopefully get a little bit little bit of readability on all these items, and we’ll have an replace as quickly as we will.
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