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iRobot co-founder Helen Greiner has resigned from her position as chairman of iRobot, effective October 24, the company announced Wednesday evening.

iRobot co-founder Helen Greiner

(Credit: iRobot)

Chief Executive Colin Angle, also a co-founder, was voted unanimously by iRobot's board to take Greiner's place. Angle will also remain the company's CEO, according to a company statement.

iRobot was not immediately available for comment.

The company is now down two major company leaders. Greiner's sudden departure closely follows a September announcement that iRobot co-founder and famous Massachusetts Institute of Technology roboticist Rodney Brooks was leaving his position as iRobot's chief technology officer.

Brooks is working at another robotics company, Heartland Robotics. iRobot said in September that it would not begin looking for Brooks' replacement until early 2009.

Like Brooks, Greiner plans to remain on iRobot's board and stay involved as a member of the robotics community.

"I am excited about where the robot industry is going and how I can help shape the future through individual endeavors, work with the Robotics Technology Consortium, Massachusetts Robotics Cluster, and the various boards on which I serve," Greiner said in a statement, which, like the company statement gave no explanation for her resignation.

"Since co-founding iRobot in 1990, Helen has been an integral part of the company and played a large role in our success. We are fortunate that she will maintain a position on our board of directors as she continues to drive the robot industry forward," Angle said.

While both Greiner and iRobot have said the decision was mutual, some are speculating as to the reason behind her step-down.

"Greiner didn't go into detail about why she's stepping down as chairman, and it's hard not to speculate that it was at least partially involuntary--but at the same time, it's easy to imagine that she has simply had enough of the grind and has decided to move on," said Robert Buderi in an article on Xconomy, the only news outlet Greiner appears to have spoken to directly since the announcement.

Perhaps a speech Greiner gave when she was honored in June by the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology as its 2008 Women of Vision Award Winner for Innovation (see video on right) is an indication of her next challenge.

Nekton Research's Ranger UUV.

(Credit: Nekton Research)

iRobot plans to acquire an underwater robotics company for $10 million, the company announced Monday.

The announcement comes one week after iRobot co-founder Rodney Brooks said he will step down as iRobot's chief technology officer to pursue a new venture. While Brooks will remain on iRobot's board, his move has left some people questioning what's next for the growing robotics company.

Here's one answer the company seems keen to make known.

"We believe that the underwater market is the next frontier for robots. This acquisition positions us for leadership in robot solutions on both the land and sea," Helen Greiner, co-founder and chairman of iRobot, said in a statement.

iRobot predicts that the purchase of Nekton Research will garner it up to $8 million in product and contract revenue for 2009. The deal also expands iRobot's client list to include several agencies in the U.S. Navy.

Nekton Research's Transphibian robot aka Madeline is used for clearing underwater landmines.

(Credit: Nekton Research)

Nekton's products, according to iRobot, will dovetail with the Seaglider, an AUV (Autonomous Underwater Vehicle) iRobot purchased the commercial rights to develop from the University of Washington in June.

Nekton Research, based in Durham, N.C., was founded by a group of faculty from Duke University. It makes about five types of unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) and related robotics technology.

The Ranger is for search and underwater surveying with a faster version called the Nekton High Speed UUV. Nekton has several different fin-equipped UUVs when specific maneuverability is an issue, as with its Transphibian robot for clearing underwater landmines.

The BioBay is the sea equivalent of a chemical detection robot and can also take water samples. It's currently being used by the EPA in several areas where contaminated water is a concern, according to Nekton Research. Nekton Research is also developing a team of tiny swarming underwater robots called MicroHunters. They can be sent en masse for scoping out large areas of water.

Rodney Brooks, co-founder of iRobot

(Credit: iRobot)

iRobot co-founder Rodney Brooks is leaving his post as chief technology officer to concentrate on a new robotics company.

"I want to effect a powerful evolution in the world's labor markets, and my current focus is to develop low-cost robots that will empower American workers," Brooks said in a statement on his Web site.

Brooks' new robotics venture is a Cambridge, Mass.-based company called Heartland Robotics, which will focus on industrial worker robots. The two companies will not compete directly, iRobot said Tuesday in a statement.

iRobot will begin looking for Brooks' replacement in 2009. Brooks will remain on iRobot's board of directors. He will also be chairman of a newly formed technical advisory board for the company, according to iRobot.

Brooks, a leading authority in the field of robotics, was the director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 1997 to 2007. He is still a professor in the electrical engineering and computer science department at MIT.

Brooks co-founded iRobot in 1990 with two of his students, Helen Greiner, now chairman of iRobot, and Colin Angle, now iRobot's chief executive officer.

"Rod has been an integral part of iRobot over the years, playing a large role in the company's success. We are fortunate that he will continue to be a part of the company, lending his expertise and knowledge to our roadmap forward," Angle said in a statement.

The company's first product was the Roomba robot vacuum cleaner, of which Brooks was a principle architect. Since then, then company has sold more than 3 million robots for the home and has supplied about 1,700 robots to the U.S. military, according to company statistics. On Monday, iRobot announced had it signed a contract to supply the U.S. Army with robots, parts, and services worth up to $200 million.

Brooks at his MIT office in 2007.

(Credit: Candace Lombardi/CNET Networks)

The U.S. Army plans to spend up to $200 million on iRobot products over the next five years, iRobot announced Tuesday.

The contract iRobot previously had with the U.S. Army Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training, and Instrumentation expired in May 2008 and was limited to the purchase of PackBots.

iRobot's PackBot with RedOwl Sniper Detection Kit.

(Credit: iRobot)

The new contract gives the U.S. Army the freedom to purchase parts, training, and maintenance services from iRobot, as well as any robots from the company's industrial or consumer lines over the next five years, according to iRobot.

However, the $200 million five-year contract that was awarded is a "ceiling priced Indefinite-Delivery/Indefinite-Quantity (IDIQ) contract," iRobot said in a statement.

That means the U.S. Army may or may not spend the full $200 million in products promised.

IDIQ contracts are common between vendors and U.S. government agencies because they are flexible and unrestricted.

According to Federal Acquisition Regulation on IDIQ contracts, the U.S. government does not have to spend the full dollar amount to fulfill its contractual obligations with the vendor. It also allows the government to use the money designated for that vendor on any products and services as needed over a designated period of time, rather than restrict it to purchasing a specific list and quantity of items.

While vendors are not guaranteed that the full contract amount will be realized, it does give them the opportunity to offer new products as they become available. Whether or not this type of flexibility is advantageous to vendors is up for debate.

It's clear why the U.S. Army would want the option to purchase parts and maintenance from iRobot. About 1,700 PackBots have now been sold to the U.S. military, according to iRobot's latest figures. The Department of Defense has ordered that the older models be kept in use in some capacity if possible. A few weeks ago, the U.S. Army announced it had found a way to recycle old PackBots for new uses.

iRobot also announced in June that it won a contract with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the U.S. Army Research Office to develop a "ChemBot." The new type of robot will be made of flexible material and be able to squeeze into tight spaces.

The Negotiator, iRobot's latest addition to its industrial robot line.

(Credit: iRobot)

iRobot announced a new addition to its lineup of industrial robots Wednesday.

The Negotiator, another tactical mobile robot that can climb stairs, seems to be a pared down, civilian version of the PackBot.

Like the PackBot, the Negotiator can climb stairs, work by remote control, and be outfitted with tools for reconnaissance and chemical detection.

iRobot already offers a version of the PackBot 510 with a kit for first responders. While some municipalities have adopted it, the PackBot hasn't exactly become a common sight at your local police station.

It seems that iRobot has finally realized that the PackBot, while fine for military units with large budgets, was just too expensive for local government agencies to adopt.

"We believe that the low entry price point for iRobot Negotiator will help make it accessible to local, state and federal agencies that would not have been able to afford a robot otherwise," Joe Dyer, president of iRobot's Government and Industrial Robots division, said in a statement.

The Negotiator will be available in the fourth quarter of 2008 for about $20,000, according to iRobot.

iRobot's Negotiator.

(Credit: iRobot)

iRobot's PackBot 510 outfitted with the offered iRobot First Responder Kit

(Credit: iRobot)

The LandShark UGV robot.

(Credit: Black-I Robotics)

A robotics company founded by a father who lost his son to the Iraq war has garnered an $800,000 contract with the U.S. military.

Black-I Robotics makes an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) called the LandShark that can be used as a platform to disable bombs, provide reconnaissance, and carry wounded soldiers from the battlefield. The LandShark robot can also be used at home in the U.S. as an aid to first responders for search-and-rescue, firefighting, Hazmat, and SWAT efforts, and even in agriculture, according to a company statement.

"We believe UGV chassis should be thought of as Jeeps which can then be modified for specific missions," the company said in a statement.

The Technical Support Working Group (TSWG) , a group funded mostly by the Department of Defense, awarded a contract to Black-I Robotics on July 1 to provide two working versions of the robot to be tested out by the military and one version to be used in a Homeland Security capacity at Logan Airport in Boston, according to a report from the Associated Press.

The Tyngsboro, Mass.-based company was founded in 2006 by Brian Hart, whose son, John Daniel Hart, was killed in an unarmored Humvee near Taza, Iraq, in 2003.

The tragedy catalyzed Hart to speak out publicly about the lack of proper body armor and other defensive equipment available to military men and women in Iraq. Since 2005, Hart has also maintained a blog chronicling the failures and successes of the Iraq war, as well as injustices going on elsewhere in the world.

But he took his concern one step further by trying to develop a robust robot that can be made cheaply and thus be provided to more soldiers for protection.

To that end, Black-I Robotics uses some open-source software and off-the-shelf hardware in conjunction with its own proprietary technology. The different modules that customers can have added to the LandShark platform include plows, radios, arms, and trailers (demonstrated in this company video).

In addition to an expected increase in sales to the U.S. military, iRobot says it will see growth in its unmanned robot platforms from foreign buyers.

iRobot's Warrior robot can be modified to support chemical sensor devices or functioning weapons.

(Credit: Candace Lombardi/CNET News.com)

The "Unmanned Systems Roadmap 2007-2032," a report put out by the Department of Defense last year, outlined a strategy to increase spending in unmanned technology for the air, sea, and ground.

iRobot, which has already been supplying the U.S. military with unmanned robots for use in ground reconnaissance and combat, has repeatedly said it will benefit from the military's increased need.

But the company now says that as its robots have proven themselves useful in Iraq and Afghanistan, interest from foreign armed forces has also increased.

iRobot has sold robots from its line of unmanned military drones internationally to 13 allied countries, including Australia, Gemany, Israel, and the United Kingdom, since 2006, Joe Dyer, president of iRobot's Government & Industrial Robots division, told reporters in a Web conference Wednesday.

The international market consisted of only a handful of robots sold in 2006, but about 8 percent or 9 percent of iRobot's total revenue for unmanned robots in 2007. This year, iRobot estimates that its foreign market will increase to about 15 percent of its total revenues for its government and industrial division, according to Dyer.

But how do export license approvals work when a company is a supplier of dual-use technology to the U.S. military? Admittedly, iRobot's unmanned platforms are just as suited to benign first-responder search-and-rescue functions as they are to lethal combat. But either way you look at it, iRobot is still selling hardware with high-tech military capability to foreign entities.

"It's on a country-by-country basis. If country X desires to purchase iRobot robots, we take it to (the State Department) for approval. If we receive it, we proceed," Dyer said.

iRobot has secured a multimillion-dollar R&D contract for a new type of soft, flexible robot for the military, the company announced Tuesday.

The "ChemBot" project was awarded to iRobot from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the U.S. Army Research Office.

iRobot did not release any preliminary diagrams or details on what the ChemBot might look like. But some ideas on what a ChemBot might be like can be gleaned from a request for proposals DARPA put out in March 2007. The robot DARPA wants to see must be a soft, flexible, mobile robot that can squeeze into hard-to-reach places. The goal is to make a robot that would be "soft enough to squeeze or traverse through small openings, yet large enough to carry an operationally meaningful payload," according to DARPA's request. The robot will also need to change in size and shape to fit a given situation's needs.

The ChemBot project led by iRobot will include team members from iRobot, Harvard University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with expertise in chemistry and material science, as well as those versed in the expected actuator, electronics, sensor, and computer technologies.

The ChemBot will be used for reconnaissance and search-and-rescue type missions, according to iRobot.

Small and nimble seems to be the latest robo-interest.

SRI International released footage of its sticky wall-climbing robots in April. BAE Systems announced in early May it secured a $38 million contract with the U.S. military for its spider-like intelligence-gathering robots. Finally, researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle announced earlier this month that they are developing "robofish" for gathering information at sea and that the military is interested in a school of its own.

Seaglider

(Credit: University of Washington)

iRobot has secured exclusive commercial rights to develop an unmanned sea-faring robot from a group at the University of Washington.

The Bedford, Mass.-based company made the announcement Tuesday at the annual symposium for the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI).

Specifically, the agreement is to commercialize an AUV (Autonomous Underwater Vehicle) called the Seaglider.

The Seaglider was developed by the Applied Physics Laboratory and the School of Oceanography at the University of Washington in conjunction with the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research, which funded the initial project.

iRobot believes the Seaglider has military application potential. The company's Government & Industrial Robots division, the same side of the company that developed its military PackBot, has been put in charge of developing the Seaglider, according to two iRobot sources.

A public statement from co-founder and Chairman Helen Greiner also indicated the company has military use in mind.

"We have a strong track record for transferring new technology from research initiatives into products that support military missions...licensing the Seaglider from the University of Washington will help our robots conquer new underwater frontiers," Greiner said.

As part of the deal, the University of Washington will retain the rights to continue to develop and build Seaglider robots for its own research use, according to iRobot.

iRobot is best known for its vacuum-cleaning Roomba and it's military Packbot, but the company does already sell one underwater robot in its commercial line. The Verro pool-cleaning robot crawls along the floor and walls of a swimming pool to clean it.

While not as glamorous to the general public as walking and talking robots or robots that drive, AUVs have been getting a lot of attention in recent years within the robotics community.

There's an AUV equivalent to the DARPA Urban Grand Challenge, the annual "race" of robot cars. The Office of Naval Research and AUVSI sponsor the annual International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition. The AUVs are judged on things like computer control, power management, and navigation. This year's competition will be held in July at the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in San Diego. The competition even has its own Facebook group.