A global leader in unmanned vehicle robotics for research and development, and provides hardware, software and services to enable self-driving vehicle development, deployment, and operation: Clearpath Robotics

The Silicon Review

The first industrial robot was introduced to the U.S. in the 1960s. Since then, their technology has improved immensely creating many advantages of robots. The advancement of robotics has also caused robots to become more widespread across various industries ranging from manufacturing to health care. Many benefits of robots seem to be most noticeable in productivity, safety, and in saving time and money. Many people believe the misconception that robots have taken away jobs from workers, but that is not necessarily true. Robots have created new jobs for those who were once on production lines with programming. They have pulled employees from repetitive, monotonous jobs and put them in better, more challenging ones. They also allow US companies to remain competitive, keeping jobs local. Robots are user-friendly, intelligent, and affordable. The benefits of robots continue to grow as more industries incorporate them. Clearpath was started in a basement by four friends who loved building robots in university. After experiencing their own frustrations in the lab, they wanted to make robotics research easier. Persisting, failing, iterating and finally succeeding on the build of their first unmanned vehicle, Clearpath Robotics was born. Since then, the company has grown. The company has robots and customers all over the world.

Robotic Platform Development

Clearpath Robotics offers hardware engineering services specializing in mobile robot design and systems integration. Leveraging the company’s experience in fielding hundreds of robot systems around the world, the team helps you build and deploy your next robotic product: indoors in your facility or outside in the wild. Whether it is a fast prototype or a system for large scale deployment, Clearpath can concept, design, manufacture, integrate and test your robot. At the high level, the team can handle your systems architecture, technical requirements capture, payload integration, test plans and provide guidance for functional safety and certification. At the design level, they will execute all mechanical, electrical, firmware and software design required to bring your platform to life. Drivetrains, suspension, batteries and power systems, controllers, I/O, PLCs and Computers and ROS: all the tightly coupled components of a mobile robot are designed in house, by a single team of robotics engineers. Clearpath indoor and outdoor autonomous navigation software packages can accelerate your time to deployment of your robot system. By leveraging the company’s technology developed to guide fleets of mobile robots around industrial facilities and to navigate outdoor patrol missions, Clearpath can help turn your hardware product into a machine that drives itself. Mechanical, electrical, firmware, software, autonomous navigation, integration: your application. Clearpath brings together all elements of robot hardware design, software design and integration into a single experience. While any single component may be simple, bringing all of the pieces together to make a complex system is hard. Clearpath Robotics is uniquely capable of engineering and integration with the full system picture in mind. Clearpath works with technology partners to integrate all the components required to build your application in robotics. From the latest drivetrain motor technology to long range networking, wireless charging, state of the art sensing and fleet management. These components come together with Clearpath’s commercial grade systems architecture to create reliable systems with the fastest path to market.

Systems Design & Safety

There is much more to building a robot than just building a robot. Safety is now a key consideration to operating mobile robots in public, industrial or commercial spaces. Clearpath’s team of systems engineers has brought industrial grade systems to market. The company’s team will work with you to understand your application, develop a risk assessment and select the appropriate safety functions and hardware to ensure your system operates safely and reliably. Getting things right the at the concept and prototype stages ensures your system will be on the correct path to future certification. The Autonomy Research Kit (ARK) is an all-in-one autonomy kit that enables robust point-to-point autonomous navigation of mobile robots. The kit provides advanced software with a powerful processor and sensor suite, and integrates seamlessly with Clearpath mobile robotic development platforms. Designed for researchers in academia and corporate R&D, ARK is ROS ready and fully extensible with a well documented developer API. ARK software provides reliable point-to-point autonomous navigation in changing indoor environments with dynamic path planning, simultaneous mapping and localization (SLAM) and obstacle avoidance.

Meet the leader behind the success of Clearpath Robotics

Matt Rendall is the CEO of Clearpath Robotics. Fueled by a potent combination of ambition and determination Matt can typically be found trying to take over the world one robot at a time. No obstacle is too large, no detail too small. Give the man a green tea and watch him go! Developing the vision and strategic direction of this high-growth robotics company, Matt believes that robots will change the way the world works and is passionate about helping companies find rapid-ROI through the adoption of service robots. In pursuit of this objective, he is leading a transformation at Clearpath with aspirations to become the world’s first $1B service robotics company. Matt has been named Young Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young in 2013 and Profit Magazine in 2011.