One of the hardest parts of growing a company is coming to terms with the inevitable growing pains. Robots add an interesting paradox – while they are inherently built to support scaling, they often add complexity by generating massive amounts of data that requires intelligent processing to manage and drive continuous improvement.

If you wanted to secure a computer server you would typically start with a controlled environment. That means a controlled climate, controlled physical access, strong networking, and some security oversight. In the world of robotics you often see autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) with valuable data roaming around in totally uncontrolled environments, hosting an unsecured web server with little or no firewalls, and interfacing directly with store and warehouse employees, or even the public at large. This wild west environment may bring back painful memories of the early days of the internet, but believe us, the times are changing.

Cleaning is one of the most-hated chores for people, and over the years we’ve seen improvements in automating tasks like vacuuming, washing dishes, and floor cleaning. In commercial locations, we’re now seeing autonomous robots enter the field with self-driving robotic floor scrubbers, and automated disinfection robots to help sanitize hospital rooms and other public areas.

At InOrbit, most of our time is spent thinking about robots and how to make them perform better. But part of that vision includes robots and humans working together – without the human factor, robots are just a collection of metal and plastic parts. Here is another in a series of posts highlighting some of the outstanding humans on the InOrbit team, also known as InOrbiters. The posts aim to share details on some of the newest members of the team, what drove them to work here, and what they find most interesting about robotics and the development of the InOrbit platform.

Like most geeks, we’re big fans of time-travel movies and stories that allow characters to go forward or backward in time to either right past wrongs, or see historical events from a different perspective. That was part of the motivation for Time Capsule™, a new offering from InOrbit.

A dark kitchen is not where we end up in search of a midnight snack. Rather, it’s a concept for restaurants, especially in bigger cities, that eliminates the front-of-house aspect of a restaurant (dining room, tables, chairs, waitstaff) to leave only food preparation tasks. Basically, it’s a restaurant that exists only to serve carry-out or delivery orders for customers.

At InOrbit, most of our time is spent thinking about robots and how to make them perform better. But part of that vision includes robots and humans working together – without the human factor, robots are just a collection of metal and plastic parts. Here is another in a series of posts highlighting some of the outstanding humans on the InOrbit team, also known as InOrbiters. The posts aim to share details on some of the newest members of the team, what drove them to work here, and what they find most interesting about robotics and the development of the InOrbit platform.

Barbara Martinez, Front-end developer

It’s not a surprise to hear that many of today’s roboticists were inspired by George Lucas and the Star Wars films to create their own “droids” and intelligent machines. As the world recognizes Star Wars Day (May 4, as in “May the Fourth” be with you), we noticed some similarities between the droids in a galaxy far, far away and the ones now populating planet Earth. We also realized that much of the universe-saving that goes on in the movies rely on the assistance of these mechanized beings.

We’ve said it here before, but it’s worth repeating – robots fail, and they fail more often than you think. When companies talk about the benefits of robotics, they tend to gloss over some of the downsides of autonomous systems, especially those that work in dynamic, changing and chaotic environments. Robots get stuck, they get lost, they break down … and occasionally they even catch fire or fall down an escalator.

At InOrbit, most of our time is spent thinking about robots and how to make them perform better. But part of that vision includes robots and humans working together – without the human factor, robots are just a collection of metal and plastic parts. We are starting a series of posts highlighting some of the outstanding humans on the InOrbit team, also known as InOrbiters. The posts will share details on some of the newest members to the team, what drove them to work here, and what they find most interesting about robotics and the development of the InOrbit platform.