ActivMedia Robotics - History

History

Founded in 1995, it was an early developer of autonomous robots ubiquitous to universities and often the first serious robot used by students involved in learning to be roboticists, as evidenced by the fact that it was chosen by Microsoft as the reference platform on which to implement their new Robotics SDK and is supported by ROS and Player Stage Robot APIs. The 2003-2004 Centibots project, sponsored by DARPA and investigated by SRI International, utilized 100 ActivMedia robots to perform distributed tasks.

In 2007, the company released a unique omni-directional Seekur security rover. The omni-directional wheels let it drive sideways as well as forwards and back, to perform in tight spaces. In early 2008, Seekur demonstrated autonomous navigation in GPS-blocked spaces around buildings. In 2009, the company expanded the capabilities of its Motivity robot autonomy to enable fleets to behave more like people, following site-specific traffic rules and varying its speech and other aspects of its "personality" in ways appropriate to its workplace.

On June 14, 2010 MobileRobots Inc. was acquired by Adept Technology. Since then the company has been testing mobile conveyor robots and telepresence systems for use in corporate and hospital settings.

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