The Robot Report Podcast

Arthur Erickson, CEO and co-founder of Hylio, leads an American drone company focused on agricultural spraying. He recounts Hylio’s pivot from general industrial drones to ag, talks about competing with Chinese brands and the boost from U.S. foreign-drone restrictions. He also covers AI route planning, swarm autonomy, supply-chain resilience, and expanding into solar and emergency-response uses.

Boris Sofman, co-founder and CEO of Bedrock Robotics who builds autonomy for heavy construction machines. He discusses making excavators and bulldozers operatorless. He draws lessons from Waymo and explains retrofit upfits, safety-first AI practices, and how one supervisor could orchestrate many machines. He outlines market urgency, scaling oversight, and plans to move to fully operatorless deployments.

Ed Mehr, Co-founder and CEO of Machina Labs, is building software-defined factories with robotic RoboCraftsman cells. He discusses flexible robot-powered manufacturing that can switch product lines instantly. Topics include Architect software that turns CAD into real-time robot control, integrated QC and digital twins, factory-as-a-service parallels to cloud, and partnerships for mass customization and global deployment.

Dinesh Narayanan, co-founder and CRO at General Robotics, who built the Grid platform to speed robotics deployment. He talks about Grid’s simulation-to-real pipelines and pre-integrated AI model library. He explains modular plug-and-play skills, model CI/CD for fleet updates, and integrating many OEM robots. He also covers agents, Copilot integration, and how Grid supports humanoid workflows.

On the show this week, our guests are Andrew Singletary, CEO, and Amir Sharif, COO of 3Laws. They discuss the evolution of the 3Laws technology from academic research to practical applications, the challenges of startup leadership, and the importance of integrating safety into the design process. The conversation highlights the innovative approaches 3Laws is taking to democratize autonomy and ensure safety in robotics, emphasizing the need for deterministic safety systems in an increasingly AI-driven world. We also learn the differences between their products, Supervisor Pro and Supervisor for ROS, and how these solutions cater to different market needs. The discussion highlights the significance of customization in safety solutions, the role of safety certification, and the potential for making robotics more accessible to smaller companies. Ultimately, the conversation emphasizes the ongoing evolution of robotics and the importance of safety innovations in this field. To learn more about 3Laws: https://3laws.io/ ### – SPONSOR – Download the 2026 State of the Robotics Industry Report: https://www.therobotreport.com/state-of-robotics-industry-report-2026/

Gavin Keneally, CEO and co-founder of Ghost Robotics, leads a company building rugged legged quadrupeds for industrial and military use. He recounts the company origin and why legs beat wheels in rough terrain. He explains ruggedization, modular field repairs, the addition of a manipulator for practical tasks, and balancing autonomy with teleoperation.

Ben Gruettner, Chief Revenue Officer at Robust.AI, discusses Carter carts, DHL deployments, and warehouse vision roadmaps. Sankalp Arora, CEO of Gather AI, highlights a $40M raise and autonomous aerial cold chain visibility. They recap Manifest highlights, drone and cold-chain demos, and shifting trends toward software and AI in warehouses.

Our guests this week are Mario Mauerer, from Maxon and David Koelle, Charles River Analytics. In this interview from the Humanoid Summit in Silicon Valley, Mike Oitzman speaks with Maxon’s Mario Muerer about how humanoids and mobile manipulation are shaping the company’s actuator strategy, from scalable product design and simulation to safety, commercialization timelines, and the real-world practicality of hands and end effectors. Connect with Marco: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mario-mauerer/ David Koelle, a principal software engineer at Charles River Analytics, discusses his work on applied AI research for government clients, NASA's ASTRA project, and his passion for music programming, highlighting the symbiotic relationship between AI and human decision-making. Connect with David: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dmkoelle/ Learn more about Charles River Analytics: https://cra.com/ ### – SPONSOR – Download the 2026 State of the Robotics Industry Report: https://www.therobotreport.com/state-of-robotics-industry-report-2026/

Our guest this week is Kevin Damoa, founder and CEO of Glīd Technologies. Damoa discusses Glīd, the world's first autonomous road-to-rail solution, which addresses the problem of ensuring accessibility to both road and rail corridors. Glīd autonomous vehicles pick up fully loaded semi-trailers from the port or road, and then transfer directly to rail. The conversation with Damoa highlights the commercial start of Glīd, driven by the need for quick revenue generation. He also mentions the challenge of securing capital for a robotics startup. Learn more about Glid: https://www.glidtech.us/ ### – SPONSOR – Download the 2026 State of the Robotics Industry Report: https://www.therobotreport.com/state-of-robotics-industry-report-2026/

On the show this week, our guest is Thomas Pilz, Managing Partner of Pilz GmbH & Co. KG, who dives into the company's evolution from a glass-blowing business to a leader in robotic safety. Thomas emphasizes the importance of adaptability and innovation, highlighting the company's commitment to safety as a core value. He discusses the challenges and opportunities in aligning safety with productivity, the role of international safety standards, and the potential of hydrogen as a sustainable energy source. The conversation also touches on the integration of AI in safety systems and the cultural ethos at Pilz that encourages entrepreneurial thinking among employees.