December 01, 2020

Colorado Advanced Industries Accelerator Program Awards PickNik Grant Funding

by Dr. Dave Coleman, CEO
Colorado Advanced Industries Accelerator Program A

PickNik Robotics, a Boulder, CO-based company, has won a $248,400 grant from Colorado’s Office of Economic Development & International Trade Advanced Industries Accelerator Grant Program to support development of a new mixed autonomy robot arm solution called MoveIt Pro that aims to address advanced industrial and commercial applications by leveraging mixed autonomy.

MoveIt Pro will be built on top of the popular MoveIt platform that is used by robotics companies around the world. PickNik, a leader in robotic motion planning and control, has identified a need in deploying complex manipulation robots to real world problems: the ability for a human to specify high level goals and have the software fill in as much as it can with minimal supervision.

While MoveIt Pro is currently being developed for NASA’s Robonaut2 program operating on the international space, with the support of the Advanced Industries Accelerator Grant Program, PickNik is looking to address commercial, terrestrial customers applications such as robots that assist with home cleaning, healthcare, demolition and construction, and maintenance in high security and high risk environments.

PickNik will continue to grow their open source MoveIt platform, which is a key dependency of their premium MoveIt Pro product. PickNik is very excited about the diverse applications that MoveIt Pro will enable, and supported by this most recent grant award, hope it will greatly extend their existing robotic software offerings.