Robots for Morocco earthquake, sustainability, choreography, agriculture, investment and IPOs

Plus autonomous trucking, driving, flying, bartending, going to school and serving up fashion and fast food. Jeez, just like teenagers!

If you just read one piece from each section then the PulseNews Korea article about Doosan and Bear Robotics contains a lot of interesting information. As does the NIST economic analysis of manufacturing in the US. And we have a great glimpse of Madeline Gannon’s robotic choreography installation in Miami.

And there’s Silicon Valley Robotics upcoming event The New Wave of Robotics: Engineering a Sustainable Future which features a keynote “The World after the Supply Chain Crisis” by Keegan Kirkpatrick, CEO of RedWorks and Partner at Space Advisors, followed by a panel on investing in robotics sustainability solutions with Aidan Madigan-Curtis, Partner at Eclipse Ventures, Andrew Gillies, CTO & Co-founder at Urban Machine, Kira Noodleman, Partner at Bee Partners and Ann Torres, Senior VP of Engineering at Synapse. We end with roundtables for indepth discussions around sustainability in robotics and of course a happy hour reception.

And Prof Robin Murphy has just released a video explaining the use of drones for search and rescue in the Morocco earthquake aftermath. Murphy is the founder of the field of Disaster Robotics and CRASAR, the Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue, and has been deploying robots at major disasters around the world since 1995.

Big thank you to everyone who has become a paid subscriber - it makes you an angel investor in the work I do at Silicon Valley Robotics and as a startup advisor, and accelerator. And maybe we can do more to share your experience and expertize with the robotics startup community. Mentor Office Hours, maybe startup profiles. We’ll keep exploring.

Quick Reads:

Private equity funds hit ‘jackpot’ with robotics investment - PulseNews Korea

Robots are already killing people - The Atlantic

Haters Going To Hate

Newsom signs executive order preparing California for AI - Politico

One senator’s big idea for AI - Politico

100 years of fearing robots - VOX

Do not fear the robot uprising. Join it. - Wired

Marines considering autonomous systems for almost everything, general says - USNI News

Imbue raises $200M to build AI models that can ‘robustly reason’ - TechCrunch

Fashion company leaves the driving to robots - DCVelocity

New robots are making Amazon’s warehouses more efficient. Can they also make them safer? - GeekWire'

Oculus Founder Palmer Lucky’s Newest Toy Is a High-Speed Autonomous Aircraft - Gizmodo

SoftBank backs autonomous trucking firm started by ex-Ford self-driving executives - Bloomberg

Founders of shuttered Argo AI launch autonomous trucking startup - FreightWaves

Tyson Foods and Gatik to Deploy Autonomous Trucks in Northwest Arkansas to Optimize Supply Chain Efficiency - Tyson

Autonoomous cars one step closer in Australia after “successful” Ford Ranger trial - Drive.com.au

Climate, robotics pushing cattle under roof - AgUpdate

Kerala youths’ robotics startup Sastra sees much demand in global market - Onmanorama

A Chick-fil-A in Texas is using a robot named Wall-E, instead of employees, to deliver food to dine-in customers - Insider

Las Vegas is the latest flashpoint between workers and AI, from robot bartenders to casino security guards - Insider

A Japanese city is installing robots in classrooms so kids who are worried about attending school can tune in remotely - Insider

Mobileye finds successful route to automated driving tech - Automotive News

Asteroid Landings Call for Robots With a Soft Touch - IEEE Spectrum

Mujin brings in $85M to boost robotics controller - The Robot Report

Robotics Events:

September 22 - The New Wave of Robotics: Engineering a Sustainable Future with Synapse and Silicon Valley Robotics

Throughout Sept & Oct - Distinguished Lectures on The Status and Future of AI - from CITRIS Research Exchange, UC Berkeley CDSS and UC Berkeley BAIR.

September 19-21 - FIRA USA Salinas: Robotics and Autonomous Farming Solutions - FIRA

September 28 - The Autonomous Systems Showcase - Deep Tech Showcase

October 1-5 - IROS in Detroit - IEEE RAS

October 18-22 - ROSCon + PX4 Autopilot Developer Summit in New Orleans and virtual - Open Robotics (save $100 by registering for both events)

October 25 - The Food AI Summit - Alameda CA - from The Spoon

Innovation & Tech Showcase, GovShop GovMarket Entrepreneur

Come join Public Spend Forum and expand opportunities for your business in government! Place yourself in front of market movers and government buyers to make worthwhile connections and build relationships. Apply today at no cost! 

Interesting Robots:

Stabilize to Act: Learning to Coordinate for Bimanual Manipulation for CORL 2023

Two robot hands are better than one! Some of the latest robot learning research from Jennifer Grannen, Yilin Wu, Brandon Vu, and Dorsa Sadigh from Stanford (ex Berkeley). This is still a big problem in real-life industrial robotics.

Brainless Robots Navigate Mazes From Neuroscience News

Researchers who created a soft robot that could navigate simple mazes without human or computer direction have now built on that work, creating a “brainless” soft robot that can navigate more complex and dynamic environments.

From Madeline Gannon on Twitter

End-of-week report: my choreorobots are up and moving @oolitearts. I'm using my trusty #ipadmini and @touchosc_hexler to drive them around a 3m x 3m x 3m area. Control software is all built with @openframeworks

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Deeper Reads:

The Biomanufacturing Economy via NIST

US Share of Semiconductor Manufacturing via NIST

Total US Manufacturing via NIST

There are three primary aspects of examining U.S. manufacturing statistics on competitiveness: (1) how the U.S. industry compares to other countries, (2) the trends in the domestic industry, and (3) the industry trends compared to those in other countries. NIST AMS 100-49 provides statistics on these aspects. Below are highlights from this publication. Due to the necessity to use a selection of datasets, there may be minor discrepancies between various statistics. Additional data and statistics can be estimated using NIST’s Manufacturing Cost Guide.

Manufacturing in Brief

Some brief figures on U.S. manufacturing include the following:

• In 2021, Manufacturing contributed $2.3 trillion to U.S. GDP amounting to 12.0 % of total U.S. GDP.

  • Including direct and indirect (i.e., purchases from other industries) value added, manufacturing contributed an estimated 24 % of GDP.

• In 2020, U.S. manufacturing imported 18.2 % of its intermediate goods/services, resulting in 10.6 % of the output being of foreign origin.

• According to the Current Population Survey, there were 14.7 million employees in U.S. manufacturing in 2021, representing 9.6 % of total U.S. employment

• Manufacturing accounted for 76.6% of total U.S. environmental impact according to NIST’s Manufacturing Cost Guide

• Average compensation in U.S. manufacturing is 8.8 % higher than that for total private industry

U.S. as a Brand

Frequently, countries are discussed as brands. Two rankings provide insight into the U.S. as a brand:

• U.S. ranks 10^th among 49 total countries in Statistica’s Made-in-Country Index

• U.S. ranks 8^th in the Ipsos National Brands Index

Inflation

Inflation has increased in recent years, which diminishes purchasing power.

• The prices received by producers for all manufacturing for the past two years between July 2020 and July 2022 has increased 33.9 %

• In the fifteen years prior to that (i.e., June 2005 to June 2020) it increased 27.1 % in total

Figure 4.6 from NIST AMS 100-49: Inflation - Cumulative Percent Change in the Producer Price Index (Selling Price Received), 2005-2022

Manufacturing Growth

• U.S. compound real (i.e., controlling for inflation) annual growth between 1995 and 2020 (i.e., 25-year growth) was 2.0 %, which places the U.S. below the 50^th percentile.

• The compound annual growth for the U.S. between 2014 and 2020 (i.e., 5-year growth) was 1.2 %. This puts the U.S. just below the 50^th percentile.

Figure 2.2 from AMS 100-49: National 5-Year Compound Annual Growth, by Country (2015 to 2020): Higher is Better

Manufacturing Industry Size

• U.S. manufacturing value added, as measured in constant 2015 dollars, is the second largest behind that of China.

• Among the ten largest manufacturing countries, the U.S. is the 4th largest manufacturing value added per capita. Out of all countries the most recent U.S. rank is 13^th

• The U.S. ranks 1st in 7 manufacturing industries out of 16 total, while China was the largest for the other industries, as seen in Figure 2.6.

Figure 2.6 from AMS 100-42: Global Manufacturing Value Added by Industry, Top Five Producers and Rest of World (ROW) (2015) – 64 Countries

Productivity

• The five-year annual compound growth in labor productivity is -0.6 %.  

• The five-year annual compound growth in multifactor productivity is -0.4 %.

• The U.S. is ranked ninth in output per hour among 133 countries using data from the Conference Board

Figure 4.8 from AMS 100-49: Manufacturing Multifactor Productivity Index (2012 Base Year = 100)

Economic Environment

There is no agreed upon measure for examining the environment for research, innovation, and other factors for doing business, but there are a number of common measures, which are discussed below.

• The ranking of the U.S. in these measures is a mixed bag, ranking high in some and lower in others.

• The U.S. ranks

  • 4^th in 2020 patent applications

  • 5^th in 2020 research and development expenditures as a percent of GDP

  • 17^th in 2019 researchers per million people

  • 22^nd in 2018 journal article publications per capita.

• Competitiveness indexes

  • The IMD World Competitiveness Index, which measures competitiveness for conducting business, ranked the U.S. 10^th  

  • The World Economic Forum, which assesses the competitiveness in determining productivity, ranked the U.S. 2^nd. 

  • The Competitive Industrial Performance Index, which measures capacity to produce and export manufactured goods; technological deepening and upgrading; and world impact, ranked the U.S. 4^th.

Types of Goods Produced

The largest manufacturing subsector in the U.S. is computer and electronic products followed by chemical manufacturing and food, beverage, and tobacco products, as seen in Figure 2.8 and Figure 2.9 from AMS 100-49.

Figure 2.8 from AMS 100-49: Value Added for Durable Goods by Type (billions of chained dollars), 2006-2021

Figure 2.9 from AMS 100-49: Value Added for Nondurable Goods by Type (billions of chained dollars), 2006-2021: Higher is Better

Manufacturing Safety, Compensation, and Profit

• Compensation

  • As seen in Figure 4.5, employee compensation, which includes benefits, has had a five-year compound annual growth of -2.1 %.

• Profit

  • Nonfarm proprietors’ income for manufacturing has had a five-year compound annual growth rate of -5.3 %.

  • Corporate profits have had a five-year compound annual growth of 4.6 %.

• Safety

  • Fatalities have a five-year compound growth rate of -0.7 %.

  • Injuries have a five-year compound growth rate of -4.4 %.

  • The injury rate has a five-year compound growth rate of -4.0 %