MusashiAI, a joint venture between Israeli SixAI and Japanese company Musashi Seimitsu, has announced the commercial availability of its autonomous visual quality control inspector, autonomous forklift driver and disruptive mobile robots fleet management system.
Live trials from December 2019 have reportedly confirmed that MusashiAI’s autonomous robotic visual inspector exceeds the speed, accuracy, and stamina of human workers. Furthermore, the autonomous forklift driver is said to have exceeded modelled expectations in terms of efficiency, cost-effectiveness and safety, using technology that combines ‘birds-eye’ view cameras above the factory floor and a central processing unit.
In additions to its initial commitment with advance payment of US$10m (£7.8m), Musashi Seimitsu said it is now willing to expand the deployment of MusashiAI’s autonomous quality control inspectors and autonomous forklift drivers in its factories globally, subject to the company meetings certain development milestones.
The company added that it has also secured a proof of concept (POC) for the quality control inspector with “one of the world’s largest bearing manufacturers” and three POCs for the autonomous forklift drivers and central management system with Israeli retail and fast-moving consumer goods groups starting Q4 this year. These agreements mark the first time the robots are being tested outside of the Musashi Seimitsu group.
MusashiAI’s latest robotic models use an advanced form of deep learning that reportedly parallels the way the human brain absorbs and assimilates information. According to MusashiAI, redeploying and switching robots between tasks is now much easier. The company said it anticipates that these improvements will be essential for many socially-distanced industrial settings amidst the on-going Covid-19 pandemic.
Ran Poliakine, co-founder of MusashiAI, said: “Our vision is that the robots integrate easily onto production floors where there will still be some human workers, but others will be released from the drudgery of visual inspection and forklift driving. To our knowledge, no-one else offers visual robots that surpass the skills of human workers as ours do. Our OPEX model means clients can deploy robots when and where they need them, without extensive CAPEX.”
