RoboBusiness announces conference agenda

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RoboBusiness, which takes place October 18-19 at the Santa Clara Convention Center, today announced its full conference agenda. Founded in 2004, RoboBusiness is the top event about overcoming the technical challenges of developing commercial robots. RoboBusiness is produced by the same company behind The Robot Report and Robotics Summit & Expo.
There will be 60-plus speakers in the conference, a startup workshop, the Pitchfire robotics startup competition, a career fair, networking receptions and more. There will also be 100 exhibitors on the showfloor showcasing their latest enabling, products and services from to help solve your robotics development challenges.
RoboBusiness will be co-located with the Field Robotics Engineering Forum, an event focused on how to successfully develop robots that operate in wide-ranging, outdoor, dynamic environments. Also co-located with RoboBusiness is DeviceTalks West, the premier industry event for medical technology professionals, currently in its ninth year. Both events attract engineering and business professionals from a broad range of healthcare and medical technology backgrounds.
Early bird rates for full conference passes are $395 until August 18th. Expo-only passes are just $75 and academic discounts are available. 
The complete agenda for RoboBusiness is below. You can also view the entire RoboBusiness agenda here and register here.
Oct. 17
Welcome Reception
5-7 PM
Oct. 18
Opening Keynote: State of Humanoid Robotics Development
Geordie Rose Co-Founder & CEO of Sanctuary AI, Jeff Cardenas Co-Founder & CEO of Apptronik, Jonathan Hurst Co-founder and Chief Robot Officer of Agility Robotics
9:30-10:15 AM
Step into the future as this keynote panel explores the remarkable advancements and current landscape of humanoids. Humanoids have historically been relegated to robotics research labs to help push the boundaries of legged locomotion and control systems. However, the tides are changing, and this panel will explore the technological breakthroughs that are propelling humanoids into the real world. Gain firsthand insights into the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead and discover which industries are poised to be early adopters of these remarkable creations.
Keynote: Robotics Are Helping to Feed the World
Sarah Schinckel Director of Emerging Technologies, John Deere
10:15 AM – 10:55 AM
Farmers are up against a monumental challenge: feeding a growing population with less available land, labor, and resources. The world’s population is expected to reach nearly 10 billion by 2050, increasing the global food demand by 50%. However, overall employment of agricultural workers is only projected to grow by 1% by 2029, slower than average for all occupations. Advanced robotics are essential to helping farmers upskill limited labor and perform precise tasks at scale. Robotics are also the key to bringing autonomy and automation to the farm. Today, farmers use highly-automated machines to prepare the soil, plant, spray, and harvest. With continued robotic innovation, farmers can perform tasks faster and with fewer resources to provide the food, fuel, and fiber our world needs. This presentation will explore the value robotics bring to the farm and what other industries can learn from its purposeful use case in agriculture.
Unlocking New Applications in Warehouse Case Handling
Craig Salvalaggio, President, Applied Manufacturing Technologies
11:15 AM – 12:00 PM
Warehouse automation is a growing trend, and it involves the complexity of combining materials handling equipment, sensors, conveyance, and software to solve these challenges at very high speeds. Labor challenges continue to impact the growing warehousing and e-commerce markets so we must look to identify best-in-class technologies that can solve the complexity in the warehouse. The warehouse of the future includes more efficient picking and sorting technology, with fewer errors and increased reliability regardless of the packaging.
In this session, Salvalaggio will break down the different descriptions of mixed product palletizing and depalletizing and describe how vision technology and software create new applications within the warehouse. He will break down case studies of robotically inducting cases into an automated storage-based system.
Attendees will learn about:

Challenges associated with mixed load palletizing and depalletizing
Real-world examples for pallet to storage case handling solutions
Vision enabling technology for de-palletizing and case-handling solutions

Motion Control Fundamentals for Humanoids & Exoskeletons
Tom S. Wood Frameless Motor Specialist at Kollmorgen; Kyle Hanley Field Sales Engineer at Kollmorgen
11:15 AM – 12:00 PM
With the rapid advancements in robotics technology, labor shortages, and the aging population, the demand for humanoids and exoskeletons with enhanced efficiency and performance has grown. Humanoids and exoskeletons are increasingly used in diverse applications, including healthcare, manufacturing, construction, and customer service sectors. This necessitates highly efficient, precise, and powerful electric motors to help replicate human-like movements accurately and enhance human movements.
Prioritizing performance, robotics startups often defer cost and scalability considerations. Maintaining the cost aspect of SWaP-C (Size, Weight, Power, and Cost) poses challenges. To meet evolving requirements, selecting the right motor solution becomes crucial.
In this session, three critical questions will be addressed to help engineers select the optimal motor design and size for their robots:

What are the challenges associated with developing humanoids and exoskeletons for mobile applications?
How does choosing the right motion solutions address these challenges, especially when scaling to commercialization while maintaining cost viability?
How do I specify the proper permanent magnet motor to improve efficiency and operating time?

A VC’s Perspective on the State of Robotics Investment
Sanjay Aggarwal, Venture Partner, F-Prime Capital
11:15 AM – 12:00 PM
Over the last five years, the robotics industry has witnessed the rise and fall of autonomous vehicles as a category. At the same time, we’ve seen the emergence of a new category known as “vertical robotics,” where companies focus on industry-specific vertical use cases. Early successes have centered around logistics, defense and security, and medicine. The autonomous vehicles category yielded a better understanding of how to build successful robotics companies, and educated a new generation of experienced entrepreneurs and operators in the robotics space.
Aggarwal will discuss what to expect in the robotics industry in the coming five years, how it will continue to expand, with an increasing focus on vertical use cases, particularly in emerging fields like agriculture, construction, mining, food, and lab and pharma. In addition, Sanjay will discuss how the hurdles facing the autonomous vehicle industry and how M&A activity from incumbent OEMs will be a key indicator of success for vertical robotics.
Off-roading Robots: Bringing Autonomy to Outdoor Environments
Jack Morrison, Co-Founder & CEO, Scythe Robotics
11:15 AM – 12:00 PM
Building robots to operate in unstructured, off-road environments presents challenges that differ from those facing indoor mobile robots and autonomous on-road vehicles. Off-road robots must be rugged enough to stand up to both their outdoor environments and the unique tasks they are executing.
Sensors must work in all possible operating conditions. Software processing must be tailored to the task at hand. And off-road applications – like cutting thick grass, harvesting, or bulldozing – can be incredibly power intensive, which generally forces power savings in all other possible areas.
Using lessons learned from developing and deploying Scythe’s M.52 all-electric, fully autonomous commercial lawn mower, this talk will share the critical ways that unstructured environments influence hardware, perception, and software design decisions for off-road robots.
Production-level Robotics for Farming
Greg Chiocco, VP of Product, FarmWise
11:15 AM – 12:00 PM
Vegetable farming still relies today on labor-intensive processes. Weed control in particular, which is critical to ensure good yields, is mostly taken care of by hand crews who walk the field with hoes. After prototyping for 5 years in the epicenter of lettuce production in North America, farm robotics company FarmWise released its first commercial robotic weeder. This machine can detect crops from weeds and mechanically uproot the undesired plants with extreme precision using deep learning and actuation control. This talk will walk you through the team’s journey and learnings from the first demo to the architectural decisions behind the new product.
New Opportunities for AI, 3D Printing and Digital Twins in Manufacturing and Intralogistics
Juan Aparicio, President, Robota Labs
2:00 PM – 2:45 PM
Adopting robotic automation is traditionally an extremely expensive, highly complex, and time-consuming process that must be approached as a significant capital project. However, recent advances in artificial intelligence, 3d printing and digital twins unlock new opportunities for manufacturers and systems integrators alike. Juan Aparicio has spent his career discovering new applications for AI in automation. Join this session, where Juan will share the recent innovations that are reducing the cost of deployments and accelerating timelines. Most importantly, Juan will separate the hype from the real world applications, and provide actual examples on how these technologies are changing robotic automation at factories all over the US.
Fundamentals of Designing AMRs
Prabhakar Gowrisankaran, VP of Engineering and Strategy, Performance Motion Devices; Amir Bousani, CEO, RGo Robotics; Mike Oitzman, Editor, Robotics, WTWH Media (More speakers to come)
2:00 PM – 2:45 PM
This panel will focus on the fundamental principles of designing autonomous mobile robots (AMRs). It will cover key aspects such as locomotion, perception, planning, control and intelligence. Attendees will hear from industry leaders who will also emphasize the significance of safety, robustness, and scalability in design, providing a comprehensive understanding of the foundational concepts needed for successful develop AMRs for various applications.
Robotics Startup Bootcamp: Tips of the Trade
Joyce Sidopoulos, Co-Founder and Chief of Operations, MassRobotics; Aaron Capron, Partner, Finnegan (more speakers to come)
2:00 PM – 3:30 PM
Starting a robotics company, as well as growing and scaling, has many challenges. The Robotics Startup Boot Camp will provide “tips of the trade” and include discussions around the many common challenges that can make or break a company along the way. Topics will include: legal formation, dilutive and non-dilutive investments, IP and patents, path to manufacturing, best practices in accounting, when to bring on marketing, sales, & HR experts, and fundraising & exits.
Advanced Field Robotics Development Tactics
Spencer Krause, President & CEO, SKA Custom Robots and Machines
2:00 PM – 2:45 PM
Building and testing field robots is challenging. Project timelines, tuning issues, budgetary restraints, and even crashes (both literal and figurative) can cause setbacks. There are a number of tactics robotics developers can use to reduce the risk of an expensive and/or dangerous failure, including breaking out individual subcomponents for testing and electrical or software integration, building standalone prototypes of subsystems, using a smaller, lower-cost robot to act as a surrogate for a full-scale system and simulation. This talk will explore some of these development methodologies, when they are appropriate, and how to employ them.
Developing Amphibious Robots
Nicolas Olmedo, Chief Technology Officer, Copperstone Technologies
2:00 PM – 2:45 PM
Robots have exhibited considerable utility in accessing remote and challenging locations, wherein the deployment of human workers is impractical due to associated risks and exorbitant expenses. Particularly in the realm of hazardous regions, such as mine tailings deposits, robots have proven invaluable in conducting geotechnical investigations, water surveys and sampling.
All-terrain amphibious robots have emerged as a viable solution for facilitating data collection and measurements pertaining to environmental monitoring, enhancing mining processes, estimating waste volume, and ensuring legislative compliance. This talk will dive into the various challenges involved with developing amphibious robots, including how they’re able to traverse a diverse range of terrains, including open water, sludge, muds, snow, and various types of ground surfaces in all weather conditions.
Robotics in China
Georg Stieler, Managing Director, Asia, Stieler Technology & Marketing Consultants
2:45 PM – 3:30 PM
The Chinese robotics industry has never been so exciting. Last year, every second industrial robot in the world was sold in China. The market is now setting major trends in industrial automation: first in the manufacture of electronics and now in electric cars, batteries and photovoltaics. Because the country is a leader in these areas, companies there are benefiting from corresponding economies of scale and learning effects.
In recent years, domestic manufacturers have increasingly moved into areas previously reserved for foreign robot manufacturers. One reason for this has been supply chain problems at the international top 4, but also technical advances at some domestic manufacturers.
Compared to Europe and the U.S., there are more engineers available, both on the developer and system integrator side. Together with the local supply chain that has developed in recent years, this enables shorter product cycles and drastically lower costs for machine vision, robots and peripheral products. Due to fierce price competition in their home market, Chinese manufacturers are also increasingly looking abroad. At the same time, the political environment is making the market less and less transparent for foreigners.
This talk will provide insights into the latest developments in robotics in China and what can be expected from there.
Improving Actuator & EOAT Performance with Electroadhesive Technology
Stuart Diller, CEO & Co-founder, ESTAT Actuation
2:45 PM – 3:30 PM
Simplified Field Calibration and Reliable GPS-Intermittent Localization
William Sitch, Chief Business Officer, Main Street Autonomy
2:45 PM – 3:30 PM
Robot sensor calibration is a frustration that can limit your commercial deployments. Calibration typically needs to happen in a controlled environment, with checkerboards, fiducials, or targets, and engineers present to run the cal process.
This talk will dive into sensor calibration in unstructured environments that don’t have checkerboards or potentially even any engineers. It will also explain how to achieve highly-accurate 6 degree-of-freedom pose estimates with or without GPS.
Lessons Learned Deploying Mobile Robots on Farms
Charlie Andersen, CEO, Burro
2:45 PM – 3:30 PM
Mobile robots are increasingly being used in the agricultural industry. During this session, you will hear from a pioneer in the agricultural robotics industry, with vast experience developing and deploying mobile robots on working farms. The primary objective of Burro mobile robots is to assist in the transportation of goods, alleviating the workload of farm laborers and enhancing the overall efficiency of farm operations.
Designing the Warehouse of the Future
Rob Thyen, SVP, Sales Solutions and Interim CIO, GXO Logistics
4:15 PM – 5:00 PM
The global market for warehousing is estimated to total over $400 billion, but less than 5% of that market is automated. However, the increasing complexity of supply chains, along with increasing pressure on profitability from rising costs and competition for customers and labor, has created demand for warehouses with tech ecosystems — networks of robotics and software designed to optimize safety, efficiency and profitability.
In 2023, an example of such a tech ecosystem was launched in the U.S. The site includes one of the largest deployments of robotics in logistics and an industry-first combination of state-of-the-art automation. The technology solutions were selected to optimize returns operations, also known as reverse logistics, for a consumer electronics company, and custom-designed to handle a high rate of throughput at minimal cost, while increasing accuracy and productivity, lowering costs, and raising profitability for the customer. The warehouse is capable of processing 50,000 electronic devices per day with technology that can pick a specific item from over 2 million pieces of inventory in seconds.
This session will highlight the different types of technology — including automated storage and retrieval robots, robotic arms, GTP robots, as well as data analytics, many of them industry-first implementations — and how they were strategically integrated to create a state-of-the-art tech-ecosystem at this warehouse of the future.
Motion Control Trends with Harmonic Drive
Speaker TBD
4:15 PM – 5:00 PM
Pitchfire Robotics Startup Competition
Steve Crowe, Editor, The Robot Report
4:15 PM – 5:00 PM
The industry’s hottest robotics startups compete in the RoboBusiness Pitchfire Competition for a $5,000 first-place prize and eternal bragging rights. Five startups deliver 5-minute ‘pitches’ to a panel of judges describing their solution, business model, value proposition and more. Judges pick a winner and two runners-up based on the startup they believe to be best primed for commercial success. Participating startups receive invaluable feedback from investors, can network with industry leaders, get free passes to RoboBusiness and will appear on The Robot Report Podcast.
Forging New Frontiers with Innovations in Mobility and Manipulation
Dave Rollinson, CTO, HEBI Robotics
4:15 PM – 5:00 PM
Robotics for next generation applications in the field are often a well-synchronized combination of three key capabilities – mobility, manipulation and sensing. Of these three capabilities, robotic mobility and manipulation are especially challenging because the tasks and workspaces are highly variable, and often unpredictable. Identifying new approaches, and enabling robots to be rapidly reconfigured, are key to unlocking the real value of automation in the field.
In this session, HEBI Robotics will present recent innovative approaches to mobility and manipulation that have been incorporated into robotic systems across a variety of applications and industries.
Examples include:
• An inchworm-like arm that navigates around confined spaces via suction or magnets and deploys tools in extremely difficult to reach spaces.
• An in-pipe crawler ‘train’ that can be modified to fit a variety of pipe sizes and deploy tooling / sensors in complex pipe structures with multiple bends.
• A multi-purpose mobile robot that can be reconfigured in the field to support a wide variety of sensors and tooling, and can even be adjusted in the field to swap out different types of wheels and treads.
Full Conference Reception
5-7 PM
Oct. 19
Keynote: How Intuitive Is Creating Distance From Competitors
Dave Rosa, President, Intuitive
9:30 AM – 10:00 AM
Surgical robotics pioneer Intuitive is outpacing competitors in the industry by doubling down on its multi-port Da Vinci Robot while also introducing new robotics technologies to combat deadly diseases. In this interview, we’ll hear how the company is building engineering and sales teams to bring its systems to more hospitals in the US and abroad.
Keynote: Generative AI’s Impact on Robotics Development
Pras Velagapudi, VP of Innovation, Agility Robotics; Jeff Linnell, CEO & Founder, Formant; Ken Goldberg, William S. Floyd Jr Distinguished Chair in Engineering, UC Berkeley; Amit Goel, Director Product Management, nvidia; Ted Larson, CEO, OLogic
10:00 AM – 10:45 AM
Generative AI is revolutionizing the software industry, but how can this breakthrough be applied to robotics? This keynote panel of robotics industry leaders will discuss the applications of Large Language Models (LLMs) and text generation applications to robotics. It will also explore fundamental ways generative AI can be applied to robotics design, model training, simulation, control algorithms and product commercialization.
The State of Autonomous Mobile Manipulation
Manthan Pawar, Global Product Manager, Autonomous Mobile Robotics, Barcodes Group
12:00 PM – 12:45 PM
Mobile manipulation faces the challenge of market readiness and costly in-house production of AMRs, robot arms and software for end users. Startups like IAM Robotics and other major companies have shifted their focus towards readily available, market-ready robotics use cases that offer the quickest returns on investment.
This talk will assess the current state of Autonomous Mobile Manipulation (AMM), emphasizing the identification of effective strategies for enabling fully autonomous navigation, missions, and arm manipulation. Combining AMRs and perception-driven autonomous manipulation is the Holy Grail, creating a versatile robotics platform for countless applications.
Accelerating the Development of Autonomous Mobile Robots
Shri Sundaram, Director of Product Management, NVIDIA – Isaac Robotics Platform
12:00 PM – 12:45 PM
Mobile robot shipments are expected to climb from 251,000 units in 2023 to 1.6 million by 2028, with revenue forecast to jump from $12.6 billion to $64.5 billion in the period. Despite the explosive adoption of robots, the intralogistics industry faces challenges. Traditionally, software applications for autonomous navigation are often coded from scratch for each robot, making rolling out autonomy across different robots complex. Also, warehouses, factories and fulfillment centers are enormous, frequently running a million square feet or more, making them hard to map for robots and keep updated.
Given the current landscape, integrating autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) into existing workflows, fleet management and warehouse management systems can be complicated. This talk will present how these challenges can be overcome across mapping, development, and simulation for validation, deployment, optimization and fleet management, while reducing costs and time to market for deploying the next generation of AMRs.
Why You Need to Work with Robotics Clusters
Ward Broom Catalyst, Advanced Technology and Development Center – Enterprise Innovation Institute; Joyce Sidopoulos, Co-Founder and Chief of Operations, MassRobotics; Andra Keay, Managing Director, Silicon Valley Robotics
2:00 PM – 12:45 PM
Robotics clusters act as facilitators and accelerators for robotics innovation, new business formation, job creation and regional wealth generation. This panel features representatives from leading robotics clusters will describe how clusters support robotics companies and robotics communities, and by extension, career opportunities. Topics covered in the panel will include:

Cluster as innovation engines
Clusters as startup facilitators
Partnering with robotics clusters
Conclusions and recommendations

Designing Offroad Autonomy Applications With Integrated Simulation Workflows
Mihir Acharya, Sr. Technical Product Manager, Robotics and Autonomous Systems, MathWorks
12:00 PM – 12:45 PM
Developing autonomous off-road systems requires the collaboration of multi-disciplinary teams working on different technology domains such as controls, perception, and motion planning. To facilitate this complex process while reducing the risks and costs associated with hardware testing, simulations are critical.
This talk will showcase various scenarios from a construction site to an open pit mine, demonstrating modeling and simulation workflows for autonomous off-road vehicles. Specifically, we will discuss the testing and optimization of autonomous algorithms through co-simulation using robotics simulators and popular game engines. Attendees will gain insight into the different phases involved in an autonomous off-road vehicle development project and understand how an integrated simulation workflow can enhance cross-team collaboration.
Developing Robots for Better Humans
Paolo Pirjanian, CEO & Founder, Embodied
2:00 PM – 2:45 PM
Socially and emotionally intelligent robots pose an incredible opportunity not only for the market, but for our loved ones young and old. Embodied has built an advanced social interface that enables human-like interaction: changes in the intonation of voice, smiling, reading body language and eye contact, and more without long, awkward pauses or the need for the use of constant wake words.
Moxie the robot has helped neurodivergent and neurotypical children with social, emotional and cognitive development. This includes specific content modules and conversations around making mistakes, reading, emotional regulation and recognition, making friends, and more. It has the ability to recognize progress and understanding of topics, and can prompt children when it detects the child could benefit from further development in an area. Moxie is also able to respond with eye contact and gesticulate with its arms, making for a more believable, personal experience.
This framework is being applied to service additional populations, including senior citizens, adults with mental illnesses, neurodivergent adults, people experiencing loneliness, and more. Dr. Pirjanian will explain the considerations and developments going into this new iteration and offer an onstage demonstration.
Generative AI for Robotics
Mitch Tolson, Founder & CEO, Ally Robotics
2:00 PM – 2:45 PM
There have been major improvements with Generative AI as demonstrated through ChatGPT, Stable Diffusion, and other algorithms. These improvements will eventually impact areas of robotics development. This talk will review the latest trends, research, and impact of Generative AI on robotic and include examples of robotics companies are leveraging Generative AI.
Challenges of Fundraising Panel
Sanjay Aggarwal, Venture Partner, F-Prime Capital; Paolo Pirjanian, CEO & Founder, Embodied (more speakers to come)
2:00 PM – 2:45 PM
Fundraising for robotics companies more challenging compared to other sectors and technologies. This panel will bring together investors and roboticists to discuss the challenges and opportunities of raising money for your robotics company. This panel will discuss the current state of robotics investments, how things have changed and what to expect in the future.
How to Fast Track Development Robotics Software and Reduce Costs
Shanif Merchant, Chief Product Officer, Numurus
2:45 PM – 3:30 PM
Edge-AI and robotics technologies are now mainstream in industrial software. But the approach to building them has not changed since its early niche days. Surveys show industrial AI and robotics solutions carry up to 35% of non-IP software, increasing software costs and time to market.
Demand for industrial automation is growing, so the industry must address the challenge of time to market and costs. The previous method of a build-it-all approach is no longer a scalable path. To attain mainstream solution adoption, we must rethink the approach to software development that reduces costs, increases reuse, and frees engineers to focus on customer needs.
The industry needs to identify areas of the software stack that are common and non-IP and transition those to a collaborative approach where capabilities are shared. The speaker will share several use cases where organizations using a collaborative approach got products to market faster. Attendees can expect to gain valuable insights into navigating these challenges through a collaborative development approach.
Closing Keynote Interview: Future of Surgical Robotics at Johnson & Johnson Medtech
Hani Abouhalka, Company Group Chairman, Robotics & Digital Surgery, Johnson & Johnson MedTech
3:30 PM – 4:15 PM