The inside scoop on food manufacturing with Chef Robotics

In episode 152 of The Robot Report Podcast, Steve Crowe and Mike Oitzman discuss the news of the week. Our featured guest on the show this week is Rajat Bhageria, founder and CEO of Chef Robotics. Rajat takes us through the inception of Chef Robotics and how he’s broken down the various workflows in the commercial kitchen. Chef Robotics is focused on food manufacturing, deploying automation to the tasks of filling ready to cook, prepared meals with individual food items.

The second feature on the show today is an interview hosted by Meaghan Ziemba, host of Mavens of Manufacturing and Joyce Sidopoulos, cofounder and COO at MassRobotics. This interview occurred live at the 2024 Robotics Summit event in Boston. Meaghan and Joyce discuss the Women in Robotics breakfast at the Robotics Summit, the MassRobotics Jumpstart program that supports local high school girls to discover a career in high tech and robotics, along with how MassRobotics is supporting the regional robotics startup ecosystem.

Show Timeline

10:02 News

23:04 Interview with Rajat Bhageria, founder and CEO of Chef Robotics

1:07:23 Interview by Meaghan Ziemba, host of Mavens of Manufacturing and Joyce Sidopoulos, cofounder and COO at MassRobotics

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In the News this week

1. 1. Robotics investments top $466M in April 2024
      1. Robotics investments reached at least $466 million in April 2024, the result of 36 funding rounds. The April investments figure lagged recent months and was the smallest amount since November 2023. April 2024’s investment total was significantly less than the trailing 12-month average of $1.1 billion.
      2. Collaborative Robotics’ $100 million Series B round was April’s largest investment. As its name implies, the California-based firm is developing collaborative robots and enabling software for their use. China’s Rokae, a provider of collaborative and industrial robots, secured $70 million in April.
      3. As with previous months, companies located in the United States and China received the largest funding amounts, $239 million and $115 million, respectively (See Figure 2). Companies based in the U.S. (14) and China (9) also received the majority of the round.
   2. Sonair sensor launch
      1. The Norwegian-based sensor company decloaked this week to announce the availability of evaluation kits for its new ultrasonic sensor.
      2. The company is attempting to disintermediate the safety lidar market with a new obstacle-detecting sensor.

1. 1. If you’re searching for a LiDAR sensor to add to your robot, Tangram Vision wants to make your evaluation process simpler. Tangram Vision, a startup building software and hardware for robotic perception, just launched an interactive tool called “Spinning LiDAR Visualizer” that lets you compare spinning LiDAR models.
   2. Users can compare 28 LiDAR models from leading manufacturers such as Hesai, Ouster, Quanergy, RoboSense, and Velodyne. The visualizer allows you to select 1-2 LiDAR sensors to analyze and compare maximum range, range at 10% reflectivity, angular resolution, and field of view. You can click and drag for different viewpoints, embed the tool somewhere else, or even modify it on GitLab.

Links from the show