Bayflex Solutions is a Silicon Valley company focused on flexible electronics testing, with interchangeable mechatronics and hostile environment integration.  Their goal is to help provide data analytics used in R&D, manufacturing and field operations.

Contactile is a Sydney, Australia-based startup company founded in 2019.  Their goal is to develop tactile sensors for robotic hands that enable dexterous robotic grasping.

Liquid Wire specializes in stretchable electronics, stretchable interconnects, strain sensors, and durable, conformable materials and electronics. Their proprietary liquid-metal material technology allows for robust connectivity and longevity.  

Haption is a French company involved in developing hardware and software based on force feedback in the industrial, medical, and research spaces.  Their force feedback devices are primarily used in haptics applications, including virtual reality.

MaxInsights a start up in the AI space, provides experimental robot data collection as a service for companies building foundation models. They also perform evaluation as a service, putting mobile and stationary robots in different real-world “scenes” and collecting data to test machine learning policies, per the customer’s needs.

Dexmate develops personal, general purpose mobile robots for a variety of tasks.  Its primary offering is the Vega robot, a humanoid-type robot built on an omnidirectional wheeled platform. The goal of this design is to maximize flexibility, reliability, and efficiency for a variety of applications.

Based in Chicago, IL, Fluid Reality develops compact, high resolution haptic hardware for VR and robotic hand teleoperation.  Their fingerpad arrays create detailed displays that help the user with object manipulation in virtual environments.  They can also be used to provide sensation in a glove the operator wears, allowing real time ‘feel’ of what a robot hand is grasping.

Chang Robotics provides engineering services around the design of custom robotics systems especially focused on providing workforce solutions.  Their goal is to address labor shortages, enhance efficiencies, and create safer workspaces by designing and deploying autonomous robotics. 

Labyrinth AI creates, designs and executes effective machine learning solutions to solve clients’ problems, particularly in eCommerce and manufacturing. 

BrightChamps is a STEM curriculum development company with an interest in robotics as educational tools for K-12 and beyond. They believe that not only is robotics education important in developing a future workforce, but that robotics can also be a tool to teach general STEM concepts to all.

Artimus Robotics develops actuators for robotics applications, and they are especially focused on soft, electrical and bio-inspired actuators designed for bio-inspired robotics, wearables, fluid control and electrostatic technologies.  They use thin plastic films and electrostatic liquids to achieve high mechanical compliance. 

The Robotics and AI Institute is directed by Boston Dynamics founder Marc Raibert. The goal of the RAI Institute is to develop robots that are smarter, more agile, more dexterous, and easier to use than robots today.  Such robots will increase productivity, reduce worker risk, and care for the disabled and elderly. 

ProWorkforce Performance is a risk assessment firm providing customized strategies for work place settings.  Their goal is to reduce workplace injuries by mitigating those risks, restoring function after injury, and building physical resiliency.

Proception AI is a startup company based in Palo Alto, CA, which specializes in developing dexterous robotic hands for humanoid robotics companies.  They are especially focused on creating precise, adaptive movements for a wide variety of applications for humanoids, with the goal of achieving human-like, precision handling of delicate objects and performance of fine motor tasks. 

Spindle is a technology company developing software to enable laundry providers efficient operation and automation solutions.  This includes infrastructure for commercial and on-premise laundries to measure and improve business performance.  As they build their automation portfolio, they see dexterity as a critical link in the performance optimization chain.

TouchTronix Robotics is a startup out of the University at Buffalo. Their primary focus is sensors for dexterous robotics, and they have developed a new sensing mechanism based on their dynamic DC generator technology for slip mitigation on shear direction. Their goal is to produce next-generation tactile sensors that deliver real-time feedback powered by AI.

TunaBotics is a startup out of Syracuse.  Their focus is on tunable adhesion technology and compliant manipulation, especially the development of soft robotic manipulators that can help accelerate automation. 

Sensible Robotics is developing sensor skins to help dexterous hands be able to operate autonomously or via teleoperation.  Their sensor system is a technology stack based on a proprietary “smart fabric” process they have developed.  This process uses specially treated piezo-resistive textiles, which facilitates the creation of a durable, conformable and soft sensor system.  This skin can be used to cover complex shapes such as a dexterous hand.  The surface coverage allows the position, direction, and magnitude of contact to be sensed.  By using this multi-modal sensor blending with high resolution pressure and vector sensing, their skin allows a dexterous hand to collect tactile data on contact surfaces.

Meta spans many technologies and interests and has been a household name since its early days as Facebook.  Overall the company’s goal has been to develop new technologies through design and incubation and bring them to the home market, with focus on helping develop the next generation of human-computer interaction.  Their research arm, Reality Labs, engages in developing these kinds of technologies, including soft robotics, haptics, novel hardware form factors, AI and applied machine learning, and even neural and EMG control and perceptual and cognitive sciences.   

Elysium Robotics is working on development of low-cost, high-dexterity robotic platforms for the labor and automation markets as well as the consumer market.  As we are well aware, although AI has advanced significantly, the development of improved actuators has not seen that same pace.  Electric motors and pneumatic actuators or hydraulic solutions are often heavy, inefficient, expensive and often not sufficiently strong for the task.  These physical limitations aren’t solved by software, and they impact scalable deployment of dexterous robotics.  Their approach to resolving this and developing new actuator methods comes from abstracting first-principles from biological systems and employing new manufacturing techniques to build systems that provide the adaptability needed by new dexterous robotics.  

Sangtera, Inc. As with the previous new member, Sangtera, Inc. is working on the design and development of new actuators.  Their approach focuses on electrostatic actuation with plans on deploying this technology in a variety of applications aside from just robotics, including semiconductors and advanced packaging systems.  This has been a banner year for the company, as they were among 19 startups awarded by the Northeast Microelectronics Coalition (NEMC) Hub through its Powering Regional Opportunities for Prototyping Microelectronics (PROPEL) Operations Program.  They were also awarded $1.18M as part of a STTR Phase II grant for a project focusing on designing, fabricating, and characterizing a small form-factor precision stage prototype to support high accuracy bonding during assembly.