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2018. 10. 5. | Time to read: 5 min
Drishti 이사회의 설립자이자 회장인 Prasad Akella박사는 기술을 사용하여 인간의 능력을 확장하는 세 번째 거대한 시장 카테고리를 만들고 있습니다. 1990년대에 프라사드는 세계 최초의 협동 로봇 (‘cobots’, 2025년까지 120억 달러의 시장이 될 것으로 예상되는 예상됨 코봇)을 개발한 제너럴 모터스 팀을 이끌었습니다. 2000년대 초, 소셜 네트워킹의 선구자인 Spoke의 공동 설립자로서, 현재 수조 달러의 가치를 가진 거대한 소셜 그래프를 구상하고 그 구축을 지원했습니다. 현재는 Drishti에서 AI 기반 생산이라는 형태로, AI의 인식력과 공장에서의 인간의 유연성을 조합하는 것에 임하고 있습니다. Prasad는 캘리포니아 마운틴 뷰에 기반을 두고 있습니다.
In the mid-1990s, I led the industry/academia team at General Motors that built the world’s first collaborative robots. It was hard work; most people even in robotics had not heard of a “cobot” (or, “intelligent assist devices” (IADs) as we referred to the broader category), knew what it was, much less how it could be useful. Our academic partners-in-crime, Northwestern Professors Michael Peshkin and Ed Colgate, founded Cobotics, Inc. (renamed CoMoCo, for Collaborative Motion Control, Inc.), the first startup in the cobot market, in 1996 while UC Berkeley Professor Hami Kazerooni went on to found Berkeley Bionics, renamed Ekso Bionics, later on). By the time I left to head back to the Valley and co-found the social networking pioneer Spoke Software, the word was out. Vendors like Fanuc, ABB, Gorbel and Stanley were producing early versions of product, and companies, including GM and Ford, were beginning to explore the use of cobots of different forms because they could see how useful and valuable this form of collaborative automation was on the factory floor.
Fast forward a decade, and Esben Østergaard, Kasper Støy and Kristian Kassow founded Universal Robotics in 2007, while Rodney Brooks and Ann Whittaker launched Rethink Robotics (then Heartland Robotics) in 2008 – and all previous cobot development efforts paled in comparison. Brooks’ track record and dynamism leant a celebrity power to his company. It’s indisputable how much Baxter and its little brother, Sawyer, changed the landscape and public dialogue around collaborative robots over the next ten years.
That’s what makes this week’s news about Rethink Robotics closing its doors such a shame, but it doesn’t come as a surprise. As I learned first-hand at Spoke, and as anyone who has worked in the startup world knows, it’s a hard road. And even after many successful years, companies can fail. Especially when you’re trying to define a category – to prove the value of a technology that has yet to be seen by the vast majority of your audience – the roadblocks are many, and the folks who emerge as victors are few.
Still, there are several takeaways we in the world of manufacturing automation can glean from Rethink’s journey, and use to help drive our own successes to the benefit of everyone in the factory:
It’s never a happy occasion to see a promising company with pioneering technology fail, especially one where a very dedicated and smart set of people have worked so hard. Luckily, Rethink’s end doesn’t mean the end of innovation in manufacturing, and I look forward to an exciting future for all of stripes of Industry 4.0 startups (including Drishti) that are attempting to help companies harness and evaluate data from tasks their machines and employees execute on the floor. The potential to impact GDP and human lives is incredible.
Our thanks and best wishes go to the pioneering team at Rethink, whom I personally applaud for moving the world of cobots forward.
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