Battlefield robots

Greetings from the insides of Moscone Center West. As I type this, Kevin Hart has just left the stage and Serena Williams is presiding over a packed house. No exaggeration: I tried to squeeze my way into the few front rows allocated to TechCrunch staff, but I physically couldn't get through the crowd. A solid double to start this Wednesday morning.

I've had some time to scour the halls here, mostly looking for hardware and robotics companies, as usual. It's always fun to see the kinds of microcosms that develop at events like this, identifying groupings that are indicative of broader current and future trends in the startup world.

I'm happy to say for my own edification that robotics companies, in particular, were well represented. I'm not sure that's something I would have been comfortable saying about five years ago. Coupled with all the different market indicators going on, it really does feel like we've comfortably entered a new era for robotics and robotic investing.

Yesterday, I hosted what amounted to a two-hour pitch-off marathon, which involved 30 startups delivering two-minute pitches. It was a bit exhausting, frankly, but I can't wait to unbox some of these offerings in the weeks to come. One definitely deserves mention in this week's Actuator, as I ended up speaking with the CEO and doing the company profile late last week: Touchlab.< /p>

I Image Credits: Touchlab

Touchlab was the winner of our TC Sessions: Robotics event in July, so this thing is long overdue. What particularly interests me is how the outward orientation of the company has changed in such a short time. The Edinburgh-based company initially pitched us on its robotic skin. The apps there are pretty clear: they effectively add another layer of sensing to complement existing vision systems, etc.

It's still the startup's core game, but Touchlab has also begun implementing its own technology into a robotic system. He presented an elderly care robot which is essentially a standard TIAGo++ robot, equipped with his sensor technology. Elderly care makes sense because a highly pressure-sensitive sensor is needed to interact with human patients, especially the elderly.

“We have a layer of software that translates skin pressure on the suit. We also use haptic gloves,” co-founder and CEO Zaki Hussein told me. data than we currently can transmit to the user via haptic interfaces, so there is a small bottleneck, we can use the full potential of today's best haptic interface, but there is a time when the robot feels more than the user can."

Haptic sensations are translated into a wearable suit donned by an operator wearing virtual reality. I'm interested in exploring the state of teleop a bit more. There's a kind of weird stigma around this technology in a category where everyone seems to be constantly striving for full autonomy.