Mitsubishi Electric invests further in Realtime Robotics

Robotics optimisation company Realtime Robotics has announced that it has secured a strategic investment from Mitsubishi Electric Corporation. This is the lead investment in Realtime Robotics’ recently opened Series B round. Mitsubishi Electric was also a participant in the Series A round, and will be adding a senior representative to Realtime’s Board of Directors.

The funds will be used to support the refinement and scalability of the company’s robot work cell optimisation and runtime solutions, which the company says significantly help engineers and manufacturers reduce costs and increase productivity.

Realtime Robotics’ collision-free path planning technology provides solutions across the lifecycle of robotic work cells and helps optimise multirobot cells. In iterative design stages, the multirobot optimisation software rapidly generates and evaluates hundreds of thousands of possible solutions to identify the shortest cycle time. Deployment and production are further simplified by runtime control, enabling multiple robots to work closer together, while simultaneously reacting to dynamic changes. Finally, when the work cell needs to be retooled, the complex robot control is effortlessly reprogrammed for optimal cycle time from the first iteration.

By increasing its stake, Mitsubishi Electric plans to further integrate Realtime Robotics’ motion planning technology into 3D simulators and other software to optimise manufacturing through digital twins. Later, Mitsubishi Electric expects to incorporate Realtime Robotics’ technology into factory automation control system devices, such as PLCs, servo motors and CNC machines, to ensure uninterrupted plant operations by responding to needs for expanded automation capabilities, streamlined plant operations for improved efficiency and fast responses to unexpected events.

“For years, industrial robot programming has remained a rigid, costly and labour-intensive process. Realtime is helping manufacturers realise the next wave of efficiency improvements necessary to get the most out of their new and existing automation applications,” said Peter Howard, CEO of Realtime Robotics. “Our optimisation and runtime technologies constitute a powerful AI that operates much like the human brain’s motor cortex, efficiently managing multiple actions at the same time. Think of several cooks in a crowded kitchen being able to seamlessly work around each other to produce meals without error or collision. That’s the power of our technology.”