A Vision for the Future
Imagine a future where robots are as ubiquitous as smart phones, and they don’t replace people, they make our lives easier and safer. It’s a dream we’ve had for a long time, but when we look around all we see are Roombas.
Most robots on the market today are industrial, designed for business, or designed for entertainment. Only a fraction are consumer level service robots. Of those most are smart vacuum cleaners. There are millions of other tasks in homes and small businesses that can be automated with robotics.
Robot development is a risky proposition due to several factors. Firstly, robotics are expensive to manufacture and take a long time to develop. Secondly, once built, there’s no guarantee that they will sell because consumers view them as expensive toys. This makes it hard for consumers to quantify the benefits of owning one. In contrast, LLMs have ready access and visibility, making their benefits more apparent to consumers.
Additionally The Robotics industry is still building robots siloed into proprietary ecosystems, and there is a high learning curve for open source applications.
The Foltrain Robotics Company is solving this with a robotics module that combines proprietary AI/ML algorithms with pre-designed hardware. The goal is to offload some of the risks, speed up iteration, and lower the overall costs of consumer robotics, making them more accessible.