Situation
The Inventia Life Science LIGŌ team, based in Sydney, Australia, is redefining regenerative surgery by developing robotic bioprinting systems capable of creating complex, living tissue models. Their technology enables surgeons and clinical staff to print high-quality, reproducible biological structures in-situ for applications in wound healing and tissue repair. They just completed a world’s first clinical trial by printing skin cells and biomaterials directly onto a patient’s skin injury while they were under anesthetic undergoing surgery.
The LIGŌ team’s objective is to establish LIGŌ as a clinical-grade product for regenerative surgery. This shift from a clinical trial setting to a commercial product requires making advanced biofabrication faster, safer, and more accessible for multiple medical applications. To achieve the required precision and reliability for medical environments, they needed a proven, dependable robotics software partner that could help them accelerate development while meeting stringent clinical milestones.
Problem
Inventia’s engineering team needed a software solution that enabled them to address more advanced use cases with a lean robotics software team that had limited bandwidth to develop and maintain complex motion planning and control software.
MoveIt 2 open source provided a prototype but required engineering time to customize and validate — time the team couldn’t spare while preparing for their next clinical milestones. They needed a proven, supported robotics solution that could deliver reliable, sub-millimeter accuracy, handle multiple modes, and scale toward medical certification.
Solution
Inventia turned to PickNik Robotics and adopted MoveIt Pro, leveraging its high-fidelity physics engine and advanced motion planning capabilities to integrate their robot and vision system. With PickNik’s expert support, Inventia built a robotic workflow that handles complex bioprinting paths and configurations, as well as enabling them to explore and test new applications in weeks, not months.
The integration process was smooth and efficient. According to Inventia’s Lead Software Engineer, “the KUKA LBR stack worked right off the bat with MoveIt Pro.” MoveIt Pro’s easy installation process made it easy for even non-software staff — including their Head of R&D — to run and test configurations from a laptop. The team especially valued how quickly they could move from mock interfaces to live testing in simulation using PickNik’s physics engine and ready-to-use behavior libraries.
PickNik’s collaborative customer success team helped Inventia overcome configuration and ROS 2 complexity, providing direct feedback, documentation improvements, and practical training. Tutorials were praised as “the thing I actually want to do,” helping Inventia ramp up fast and focus on innovation rather than infrastructure.
Outcome
With MoveIt Pro, Inventia rapidly advanced their next clinical release, from concept to functional prototype — enabling demos in weeks not months and positioning the company for upcoming clinical validation. The system now supports precise, and repeatable robotic tasks in a clinical setting, demonstrating the real-world value of PickNik’s approach: high capability, clear communication, and fast delivery.
Inventia’s small but powerful team can now focus on refining their medical applications, confident in the stability and flexibility of the MoveIt Pro platform. As a result, Inventia has significantly shortened its iteration cycle, reducing technical risk, and established a strong foundation for future phases — including greater automation and AI-based control. PickNik’s MoveIt Pro continues to help Inventia bring advanced biofabrication to life — faster than ever.
Limited by Federal (or United States) law to investigational use.
MoveIt Pro is PickNik Robotics’ commercial robotics software platform that extends the capabilities of the open-source MoveIt project. Designed for unstructured environments, MoveIt Pro provides powerful tools for motion planning, grasping, perception, and behavior sequencing. With pre-built robot behaviors and a modular runtime architecture, MoveIt Pro significantly reduces engineering effort and time-to-deployment. Its hardware-agnostic design supports a wide range of commercial and custom robotic arms, making it ideal for scalable automation across space, manufacturing, and logistics sectors.
