Mitsubishi Electric invested in industrial robots

Realtime Robotics Completes Series B Financing

Recently, Realtime Robotics, a provider of collision-free autonomous motion planning for industrial robots , has received strategic investment from Japanese giant Mitsubishi Electric.

Although the specific amount has not been disclosed, according to foreign media reports, this round of funds will be used to optimize the company's robot work units and expand solutions to help engineers and manufacturers reduce costs and improve productivity.

Since its establishment in 2016, Realtime Robotics has completed three rounds of financing, reaching the B round, and has disclosed that it has raised more than US$45.8 million (approximately RMB 330 million). Among its shareholders are well-known institutions such as Toyota Ventures, SAIC Investment, and SPARX Group.

It is worth mentioning that Mitsubishi Electric has provided financial support to Realtime Robotics in the A round, and will add a senior representative to the Realtime Robotics board of directors after the completion of this B round of financing.

The company's CEO, Peter Howard, has 12 years of work experience at Mitsubishi. He has served as a project manager at Mitsubishi Corporation, founder and managing director of Tri-M Technologies, and founder and CEO of SM2E, and has deep ties with Mitsubishi.

Realtime Robotics: Breaking through key automation bottlenecks

One of the characteristics of the improvement of the automation level of the manufacturing industry is that industrial robots are increasingly widely used, playing an important role in improving the quality and efficiency of enterprises. However, there have always been many pain points in the process of programming, deploying and controlling industrial robots. It is not easy to make robots work in an orderly manner on the production line.

Robot motion planning is an indispensable part of industrial automation . Through pre-programming, the control system can guide the robot to move precisely along the set route to complete complex tasks such as palletizing, welding, assembly, and testing.

However, under the traditional programming process, engineers need to manually plan each robot movement, preset its operation path, and prevent collisions, which results in the "three highs" problems of high cost, high risk, and high time consumption.

In response to the many pain points of traditional industrial robot programming, Realtime Robotics has proposed an artificial intelligence-based solution. This collision-free motion planning technology has been vividly likened to the "motor cortex of the robot's brain." Its optimization algorithm can manage the complex movements of multiple robots at the same time, intelligently generate the optimal collision-free path plan, and achieve the best cycle time.

In the design phase, Realtime's optimization software can quickly generate and evaluate hundreds of thousands of solutions to find the shortest cycle time in highly complex multi-robot work cells, such as for spot welding of car bodies. In the actual production line, its runtime control system further enables multiple robots to achieve precise and close collaboration and dynamically avoid obstacles. Once the work cell needs to be adjusted, the system can also quickly re-optimize the best path.

With this technology, Realtime Robotics has brought tangible benefits to many manufacturers. Auto giants such as BMW and Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles have adopted its solutions to significantly improve production efficiency. It is reported that with the support of Realtime, they have shortened production cycle time, reduced equipment downtime, and significantly increased overall output.

In addition, Realtime Robotics also provides dynamic obstacle avoidance capabilities during operation, ensuring that the robot can adjust its motion trajectory in time when encountering sudden obstacles, thereby achieving efficient and safe operation of automated production in a dynamic environment.

Mitsubishi Electric: Investing heavily in the future of automation

Under the wave of artificial intelligence, single hardware and industrial control systems have been unable to adapt to the ever-increasing flexibility and intelligence needs. Therefore, for Mitsubishi Electric, a long-established manufacturing giant, becoming a strategic investor in Realtime Robotics is mostly out of strategic considerations to control the development trend of intelligent manufacturing.

According to the plan, Mitsubishi Electric will further integrate Realtime Robotics' motion planning technology into Mitsubishi's extensive software and hardware ecosystem, including 3D simulation software, industrial robot control systems (such as PLC, servo motors and CNC), etc. by increasing its stake.

Through digital twins, Mitsubishi Electric hopes to use Realtime Robotics' technology to achieve comprehensive optimization of the manufacturing industry, improve operational efficiency, and quickly respond to unexpected situations in the manufacturing process to ensure continuous and uninterrupted production.

Mitsubishi Electric's goal is to continue to create higher value for customers by continuously expanding automation capabilities, simplifying factory operations, and ultimately building a highly intelligent "circular digital engineering" production model.

It is reported that Mitsubishi Electric has more than 100 years of experience in electrical and electronic equipment for factory automation, information processing and communications, space development and satellite communications, consumer electronics, energy, transportation and construction equipment. In the fiscal year ending March 31, 2024, the company had revenue of 525.79 billion yen (about 34.8 billion U.S. dollars, 243.1 billion yuan).

Is intelligent manufacturing the only way to upgrade industries?

In the era of Industry 4.0 , intelligent manufacturing has become an inevitable trend. The widespread use of robots is just a microcosm of intelligent manufacturing, and the accelerated integration of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, big data and cloud computing will further give rise to profound changes in the industry.

In the past, automated production was mostly aimed at a single clear task goal, such as specific fixed processes such as palletizing and welding in an assembly line or processing unit. The automated system operated according to a pre-programmed route, lacked flexibility and intelligent adaptability, and was unable to cope with changes in the dynamic environment.

Emerging technologies introduce smarter and more advanced forms of collaborative automation to production, which can dynamically adjust equipment operations and optimize production processes based on the perception of the global production environment. This requires powerful decision-making and planning capabilities from artificial intelligence technology to evaluate and schedule the global status in real time.

Realtime Robotics does the same thing. CEO Peter Howard likens it to "digital chefs working together in a crowded kitchen," using intelligent algorithms to orchestrate the movements of multiple robots, allowing production resources to collaborate efficiently in a dynamic environment.

In addition, in the past, the manufacturing industry pursued cost advantages through large-scale production, and the product homogeneity was high. However, today, consumers have a growing demand for personalized customization, the scale effect is weakening, and flexible manufacturing has become a hot word.

From the collaboration between Mitsubishi and Realtime Robotics, it is not difficult to see the general trend of integration of the manufacturing industry chain.

For manufacturers, building end-to-end automation capabilities has always been a goal. In the future, companies will no longer be simple product manufacturers, but solution providers. The business model of companies will focus on the personalized needs of customers and provide integrated services including product design, manufacturing, operation and maintenance.

Mitsubishi Electric integrates Realtime Robotics' motion planning technology into industrial robots and control systems, essentially providing customers with smarter and more efficient manufacturing services.