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I work in robotics, I understand that every robotics company builds substantially similar core autonomy for different industrial vehicles, so I definitely see t

I work in robotics, I understand that every robotics company builds substantially similar core autonomy for different industrial vehicles, so I definitely see the value of what you're creating. However, every company needs to figure out how their autonomy will handle their specific vehicle's dynamics and their specific physical environment. For vehicle dynamics, they have to model things like wheel slippage on rough terrain, articulating joints on multi-axle vehicles, braking distance while hauling a load. For physical environment, they have to figure out how dust, fog, and poor lighting conditions affect their sensing and perception. Do you intend to make custom sim vehicles for each of your customers? Will you simulate each customer's particular camera/lidar/other sensor in their specific environment?

stefan8r 4y ago
This is a good, well thought out point that I 60% disagree with (respectfully, of course). I think you're absolutely accurate in describing how robotics is today, and you're definitely partially correct about how it will remain, but I think you're biasing towards thinking robotics (as a field) is exceptional to the types of progress that have happened in software. To unfairly simplify that assertion, it reminds me of a founder who once told me that "robotics will never be as easy as software. It's just harder and will always be so." I don't know if I think each autonomy company needs to figure out vehicle dynamics any more than I think each company needs to figure out their cloud infrastructure. At a certain scale (and amount of success) you will certainly need smart people thinking about it, but you can get pretty far on a 90% standard AWS instance. Things like wheel slippage are challenging, but their challenging in similar ways across vehicle types (but different from other tasks you need to work on when building that higher level autonomy). Similarly, if you assume you can safely stop when there's danger, there are a relatively finite number of environmental conditions you should operate in - which we can build, maintain, and improve "once" as opposed to making every mining OEM or Ag autonomy shop build from scratch. In time, there might be certain portions of this stack that you can swap out with your own (or with some other company that's better at seeing in the fog, for example); but I fundamentally don't believe that every robotics company needs to solve all of these hard problems well on their own for every application. Re:Sim - for paying customers we are putting their specific vehicle (and sometimes their environment) as a part of the offering. We're also using sim to help figure out how to position sensors (which will be another cool thing that we want to show at some point).
- defrost 4y ago
  How does your stack integrate in with that of Rio Tinto? They have, after all, been running remote and autonomous 100 tonne dump tracks and kilometre+ long trains for seven years now, in addition to being an umbrella across one of the largest mining fleets across the globe.
  - iliabara 4y ago
    Hello, Great question, I haven't seen enough technical details on their system to be able to answer definitely. However, from what I've read of their approach, it's fairly similar to the way we do things. Perhaps this means there's no reason for Rio Tinto to use us, and that's totally fine. There are 1000s of other, much smaller mining companies that can benefit from the same tech, likely at a cheaper price than what Rio Tinto spent developing their own version. Also, from our experience, these sort of approaches bake in assumptions on particular vehicle types/characteristics. So even in Rio's case, perhaps they have other smaller models, or other types of equipment they haven't automated. In this case, we'd be happy to integrate with their existing command and control software stack.
    - defrost 4y ago
      Rio has full fleet (bobcat, bulldozers, loaders, trains, underground mining speciality (uphole drillers, etc)) ambitions and they're working their way through them all. [1] https://www.riotinto.com/en/about/innovation/automation https://www.riotinto.com/en/about/innovation/automation Some of their talent date back to sheep shearing robots in the early 1980s. In the same geographic region (W.Australia) there are related automata projects such as self recharging drone clouds about tractors, agri-bots (visual identification + weed spraying), integrated geophysical air survey, etc. I was somewhat curious as to your awareness of all this (eg: Rio's plans for a full automated "bottom up" $64 billion copper mine in the US (should it go ahead)). Also, while we're here, do you have any in house mining | industry experience driving tractors, dump trucks, ship loading, etc. yourselves?
      - stefan8r 4y ago

stefan8r 4y ago

This is a good, well thought out point that I 60% disagree with (respectfully, of course). I think you're absolutely accurate in describing how robotics is today, and you're definitely partially correct about how it will remain, but I think you're biasing towards thinking robotics (as a field) is exceptional to the types of progress that have happened in software. To unfairly simplify that assertion, it reminds me of a founder who once told me that "robotics will never be as easy as software. It's just harder and will always be so." I don't know if I think each autonomy company needs to figure out vehicle dynamics any more than I think each company needs to figure out their cloud infrastructure. At a certain scale (and amount of success) you will certainly need smart people thinking about it, but you can get pretty far on a 90% standard AWS instance. Things like wheel slippage are challenging, but their challenging in similar ways across vehicle types (but different from other tasks you need to work on when building that higher level autonomy). Similarly, if you assume you can safely stop when there's danger, there are a relatively finite number of environmental conditions you should operate in - which we can build, maintain, and improve "once" as opposed to making every mining OEM or Ag autonomy shop build from scratch. In time, there might be certain portions of this stack that you can swap out with your own (or with some other company that's better at seeing in the fog, for example); but I fundamentally don't believe that every robotics company needs to solve all of these hard problems well on their own for every application. Re:Sim - for paying customers we are putting their specific vehicle (and sometimes their environment) as a part of the offering. We're also using sim to help figure out how to position sensors (which will be another cool thing that we want to show at some point).

defrost 4y ago
How does your stack integrate in with that of Rio Tinto? They have, after all, been running remote and autonomous 100 tonne dump tracks and kilometre+ long trains for seven years now, in addition to being an umbrella across one of the largest mining fleets across the globe.
- iliabara 4y ago
  Hello, Great question, I haven't seen enough technical details on their system to be able to answer definitely. However, from what I've read of their approach, it's fairly similar to the way we do things. Perhaps this means there's no reason for Rio Tinto to use us, and that's totally fine. There are 1000s of other, much smaller mining companies that can benefit from the same tech, likely at a cheaper price than what Rio Tinto spent developing their own version. Also, from our experience, these sort of approaches bake in assumptions on particular vehicle types/characteristics. So even in Rio's case, perhaps they have other smaller models, or other types of equipment they haven't automated. In this case, we'd be happy to integrate with their existing command and control software stack.
  - defrost 4y ago
    Rio has full fleet (bobcat, bulldozers, loaders, trains, underground mining speciality (uphole drillers, etc)) ambitions and they're working their way through them all. [1] https://www.riotinto.com/en/about/innovation/automation https://www.riotinto.com/en/about/innovation/automation Some of their talent date back to sheep shearing robots in the early 1980s. In the same geographic region (W.Australia) there are related automata projects such as self recharging drone clouds about tractors, agri-bots (visual identification + weed spraying), integrated geophysical air survey, etc. I was somewhat curious as to your awareness of all this (eg: Rio's plans for a full automated "bottom up" $64 billion copper mine in the US (should it go ahead)). Also, while we're here, do you have any in house mining | industry experience driving tractors, dump trucks, ship loading, etc. yourselves?
    - stefan8r 4y ago