Clearpath Robotics Acquired by Rockwell Automation

Yesterday, Clearpath Robotics of Kitchener, Ontario in Canada (and Clearpath’s cell logistics robotic division OTTO Motors) introduced that it was being acquired by the Milwaukee-based Rockwell Automation for an undisclosed quantity.

The press launch (which comes from Rockwell, not Clearpath) is concentrated solely on robotics for industrial functions. That is, on OTTO Motors’ Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) within the context of manufacturing logistics. If you check out what Rockwell does, this is sensible, as a result of as an automation firm, they’re not sometimes doing what most of us would consider as “robotics” within the sense that the mechanical techniques that they automate don’t do the type of dynamic determination making that (for my part) distinguishes robots from machines. So, the OTTO Motors AMRs (and the folks at OTTO who get them to autonomously behave themselves) present an necessary and forward-looking addition to what Rockwell is ready to provide in an industrial context.

That’s all positive and dandy so far as OTTO Motors goes. What worries me, although, is that there’s zero point out of Clearpath’s well-known and far beloved household of yellow and black analysis robots. This contains the Husky UGV, arguably the usual platform for cell robotics analysis and improvement, in addition to the marginally much less yellow however simply as impactful Turtlebot 4, introduced barely a yr in the past in partnership with iRobot and Open Robotics.

With iRobot, Open Robotics, and now Clearpath all getting partially or wholly subsumed (or consumed?) by different corporations which have their very own priorities, it’s arduous to not be involved about what’s going to occur to those {hardware} and software program platforms (together with Turtlebot and ROS) which have supplied the basis for a lot robotics analysis and training. Clearpath particularly has been a pillar of the ROS neighborhood since there’s been a ROS neighborhood, and it’s unclear how issues are going to alter going ahead.

We’ve reached out to Clearpath to hopefully get just a little little bit of readability on all these things, and we’ll have an replace as quickly as we will.