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RIOS works with NVIDIA Isaac Sim and serves the wood-products business. Source: RIOS Intelligent Machines
RIOS Intelligent Machines Inc. this week introduced that it has raised $13 million in Series B funding, co-led by Yamaha Motor Corp. and IAG Capital Partners. The firm stated it plans to make use of the funding to develop and provide synthetic intelligence and vision-driven robotics, beginning with a product for the lumber and plywood-handling sector.
Menlo Park, Calif.-based RIOS stated its methods can improve manufacturing effectivity and management. The firm focuses on three industrial segments: wooden merchandise, beverage distribution, and packaged meals merchandise.
RIOS works with NVIDIA Omniverse on manufacturing facility simulations. It has additionally launched its Mission Control Center, which makes use of machine imaginative and prescient and AI to assist producers enhance high quality and effectivity.
RIOS presents visibility to producers
“Customers in manufacturing want a better way to introspect their production — ‘Why did this part of the line go down?’” stated Clinton Smith, co-founder and CEO of RIOS. “But incumbent tools have not been getting glowing reviews. Our standoff vision system eliminates a lot of that because our vision and AI are more robust.”
The mission-control product began as an inner software and is now being rolled out to pick out prospects, Smith instructed The Robot Report. “We’ve observed that customers want fine-grained control of processes, but there are a lot of inefficiencies, even at larger factories in the U.S.”
Manufacturers that already work with tight tolerances, akin to in aerospace or electronics, have already got well-defined processes, he famous. But firms with excessive SKU turnover volumes, akin to with differences due to the season, usually discover it tough to depend on a 3rd get together’s AI, added Smith.
“Mission Control is a centralized platform that provides a visual way to visualize processes and to start to interact with our robotics,” he defined. ‘We want operators to identify what to work on and what metrics to count for throughput and ROI [return on investment], but if there’s an error on the info facet, it may be a ache to return to the database.”
Smith shared the instance of a bottlecap tracker. In typical machine studying, this requires a whole lot of information to be annotated earlier than coaching fashions after which trying on the outcomes.
With RIOS Mission Control, operators can monitor a course of and choose a counting zone. They can merely draw a field round a characteristic to be annotated, and the system will mechanically detect and draw comparisons, he stated.
“You place a system over the conveyor, pick an item, and you’re done,” stated Smith. “It’s not just counting objects. For example, our wood products customers want to know where there are knots in boards to cut around. It could also be used in kitting applications.”
RIOS is releasing the characteristic in phases and is engaged on object manipulation. Smith stated the corporate can also be integrating the brand new characteristic with its tooling. In addition, RIOS is in discussions with prospects, which may use its personal or their present cameras for Mission Control.
Investors specific confidence in automation strategy
Yamaha has been an investor in RIOS Intelligent Machines since 2020. The car maker stated it has greater than doubled its funding in RIOS, demonstrating its confidence within the firm’s automation applied sciences and enterprise technique.
IAG Capital Partners is a non-public funding group in Charleston, S.C. The agency invests in early-stage firms and companions with innovators to construct manufacturing firms. Dennis Sacha, accomplice at IAG, shall be becoming a member of the RIOS board of administrators.
“RIOS’s full production vision — from automation to quality assurance to process improvement to digital twinning — and deep understanding of production needs positions them well in the world of manufacturing,” stated Sacha, who led jet engine and P-3 manufacturing for six years throughout his profession within the U.S. Navy.
In addition, RIOS introduced almost full participation from its present traders, together with Series A lead investor, Main Sequence, which doubled its pro-rata funding. RIOS shall be collaborating in MODEX, GTC, and Automate.
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