InDro explores USV marine sector – and speaks with a PhD researcher on their work

InDro explores USV marine sector – and speaks with a PhD researcher on their work

Nov 13, 2024 | Engineering, Industry News, Marine USVs, Scott Simmie

By Scott Simmie

 

At InDro Robotics, there’s nothing we love more than research and development.

That shouldn’t be a surprise, because that’s how the company was built. From our early work building and modifying Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for clients and service provision through to a wide variety of Uncrewed Ground Vehicles (UGVs) we have invented or customised for customers, R&D has always been the heart and soul of InDro. That’s why we have a large and continually scaling team at our Area X.O operations in Ottawa.

We’ve previously done work on the marine side of things and have built and tested Uncrewed Surface Vehicles. Our ‘Talos” USV was remotely piloted and carried a sonar that was deployed via winch. We successfully deployed that on multiple missions, mapping lakebeds and vegetation. Its capabilities were excellent, but our priorities shifted to the aerial and ground side of robotics due to client demands. But we’ve always kept a close eye on marine robotics developments, particularly when it comes to R&D.

There are some really exciting companies in this space in Canada, including Open Ocean Robotics. We are very impressed with its DataXplorer, a solar-powered and self-righting autonomous vehicle suited for long-range data acquisition in the open ocean. It’s a brilliant design, and Co-Founder and CEO Julie Angus is a very impressive individual. With an MSc in Molecular Biology, she’s both a serial entrepreneur and was the first woman to row across the Atlantic Ocean from mainland to mainland. She’s a director on NATO’s Maritime Unmanned System Initiative Innovation Advisory board and was honoured with National Geographic’s Adventurer of the Year award for her trans-Atlantic achievement. Like we said, impressive.

Another company that has caught our attention at conferences is Deep Trekker. It has a solid lineup of ROVs, and we were able to operate its smallest offering at a couple of different trade shows. Recently, it launched an Uncrewed Ground Vehicle that is also submersible. We can see a wide variety of use-cases.

Below: An Open Ocean Robotics video shows off DataXplorer, followed by the InDro Robotics Talos

InDro Robotics Talos

THE R&D FACTOR

 

Of course, companies can’t create products like these without a significant investment in research and development. This is something we truly understand.

We also know that many innovations have their genesis in a lot of hard work from graduate students and those holding PhDs, who often put in untold hours on projects that can lead to commercial breakthroughs. So we thought it would be enlightening to spend some time talking to one of those people.

We sat down for a chat recently with Thomas Sears, a PhD candidate in Electrical and Computer Engineering with Queen’s University’s Offroad Robotics and Ingenuity Labs Research Institute. He holds a Master of Applied Science in Aerospace Engineering and is a Professional Engineer.

And he’s really, really interested in boats and waves. Specifically, working with USVs to learn more about predicting wave patterns and – ultimately – creating algorithms so that autonomous or pilot-assist systems can anticipate what waves might be coming and how best to orient a boat depending on what those waves are likely to do and the desired outcome.

Sears is a really good explainer. And he started the conversation by talking about humans anticipate and react to waves when they are in the water.

 

HOW PEOPLE REACT

 

“As humans when we go to the beach, we can kind of intuitively feel the waves coming and we know, OK, it’s probably four more seconds for another wave,” he says. “How do we give the boat that intuition to know: If I felt a wave here, if I move forward three meters, I’m probably going to feel in four seconds that wave is going to hit me from the side.”

That takes a lot of math, plus a bunch of sensors. But to what end? Is it simply to help ensure a boat might not capsize in rough water?

Well, explains Sears, there are a wide variety of use-case scenarios. Understanding waves, being able to predict them, could for example be of great use to Kingston colleagues who are coastal engineers and study the impact of waves on the coastal environment. A deep understanding of the math and physics involved could be highly useful in predictive models. What’s going to happen to this coastline over time? During a powerful storm?

But there are many other applications. Returning to the human example, Sears points out when a wave is approaching, a human being carries out their own calculations and braces themselves for impact.

“I’d like the boat to be able to do the same thing. If the boat can be out in the water and it can start to notice this trend, whatever the trend is, maybe I can then take an action on that trend,” he says before outlining multiple options for how a boat might respond:

“‘Aha, I’m about to get pushed by the wave.’ Maybe I’d like to surf the wave. Maybe I’d like to push against the wave. Maybe I’d like to turn so I’m safer, whatever that is. That’s sort of for the next person to work on.”

But the work being carried out by Sears will lay the foundation for that next step. He can see, even with an identical set of waves, there might be different optimal autonomous responses depending on the scenario.

“We could see this getting scaled up to crewed vessels…The boat could essentially say: ‘OK, well, we’re worried about passenger comfort.’ Or ‘We’re worried about fuel efficiency’, whatever it (the use-case) is. I’d like to just dial in that option and then the boat can start to go: ‘OK, well, given these wave conditions, here’s how we might want to act.'”

But to get there, you need research, data and predictive models.

“Without the ability to make those predictions of the waves, we have no information to act on. We would just be acting reactively. So we would just say: ‘Oh, I just got hit by a wave, do something quickly’.”

In other words, the boat has to understand what’s coming. And here, things get even more complicated. A boat doesn’t respond immediately to inputs the way an electric car does.

“When you start energizing the motors, it doesn’t move instantly. It starts churning water before something happens. Boats have a bit of a spin-up.”

So that, too, has to be factored into the equation(s) – and would have to be factored into future algorithms suited to specific boats.

“It’s the opportunity to look not just forward in time, but look around the boat for maybe a nicer spot to sit; to let me take an action before the motors are ready to go. So I can I can sort of pre-empt things, which is a sort of a superpower that I’d like to give these boats.”

Below: Thomas Sears with the USV, followed by the USV on a calm day (photos courtesy of Offroad Robotics). YouTube video shows Sears explaining his research

Kingston University Thomas Sears USV
Kingston University Thomas Sears USV

A CUSTOM USV

 

This is the perfect kind of research for an Uncrewed Surface Vehicle. But to get the right USV took a lot of work from Sears and his team.

They initially were looking for an off-the-shelf USV that would come with most of what they needed. And those needs included the Robot Operating System (ROS) software. They had plans to purchase something from a Canadian robotics company, but it had just ended production on its USV. So they were left with simply finding a base platform and doing all the modifications themselves. Researchers often prefer to put their time into algorithms and R&D rather than building and integration, but that was the option they were left with. Thankfully, with his background in Electrical Engineering this was a task Sears was capable of carrying out.

“The boat that we purchased was not designed for robotics research,” he says. “We had to take on a lot of the non-recurring engineering work of turning it into a research vessel. I’ve been involved in everything from the algorithms that are running on board to picking the computer that is running those algorithms. I happen to come from a background where that’s a comfortable thing for me.”

Doing that work, says Sears, was a “considerable time-sink” – but having a ROS-based platform was critical to the research. They not surprisingly went with ROS 2, the latest iteration of the Robot Operating System. The team actually wrote the interface software themselves, and released it on GitHub.

Then there was the sensor integration: The hardware, the wiring, the software. Plus, of course, making everything waterproof. There was a high performance Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) and a 16-beam Velodyne LiDAR. It was only when the USV was dispatched that they discovered the LiDAR beams were absorbed by the water. It was, he says, a “weird” thing.

“So unlike our our ground vehicles, where we see the ground, we see the floor, the boat is just floating in nothingness. But the really cool thing is we can leverage that because now if we see something, we know it’s not water. We just see objects – so we don’t have to worry about segmenting out ground and objects.”

That has been particularly useful in research by others using the same USV that involves identifying the coastline. The USV also carries a dual-antenna RTK-enabled GPS receiver.

“That’s critical on a USV platform because you can move sideways on a boat, if the water pushes you sideways, you can move sideways,” he says. “And that fuses with the gyroscope and with the accelerometers on board to give us a really good position measurement.”

For the data to be useful. Sears has to know precisely where the USV is at any given moment – both in terms of its absolute position and its position relative to the waves. There’s also a sonar unit, which is of great use to researchers on the civil engineering side of things. There’s also a camera on board, though Sears laughs that watching its feed is “nausea-inducing.”)

With Queen’s University’s proximity to Lake Ontario, Sears and others can literally launch the USV in about 20 minutes. They also do research inside a wave tank at Queen’s.

 

THE BIGGER PICTURE

 

As mentioned, other researchers at the university also capture and analyze data from the USV. All of them have a deep appreciation for the importance of Lake Ontario – and not just as a shipping corridor.

“Lake Ontario is full of life. It’s our source of water for drinking and agriculture, so it needs to be monitored and protected,” says Sears. “Having these water drones watching the lake on our behalf is going to help us ensure that the lake stays healthy, that we stay healthy, that wildlife stays healthy.

“We‘re working toward monitoring this very large space uninhabited by humans that we take for granted in daily life.”

Below: Queen’s University researchers look at data being collected by the USV

 
Kingston University Thomas Sears USV

INDRO’S TAKE

 

Marine robotics are kind of the third leg when it comes to uncrewed vehicles. And, given our reliance on water, a very important one. Our initial vision for InDro Robotics was that we would develop products for all three realms – and we’re still quite proud of our Talos USV.

But during the company’s initial growth we made the decision to put our energy into UAV innovations such as remote teleoperations, deliveries, enhanced service provision and more. (InDro was the first company in Canada to operate UAVs over 4G and 4G, and was the first to obtain a cargo license for drones from the Canadian Transportation Agency, among other firsts). This decision was largely driven by customer demand at the time, as well as our then-startup status.

InDro has now scaled sufficiently that we are once again exploring the marine sector.

“We will have some ROS-based offerings soon that we can customize to enable R&D researchers and commercial clients to carry out complex data acquisition in a marine environment,” says InDro Robotics Founder and CEO Philip Reece. “We’re testing the waters, so to speak, but are optimistic this could be the  next sector for our engineers to tackle.”

Already, we have some platforms available that can be used for cleaning surface garbage and cutting aquatic vegetation that’s impinging on the surface. But, like all of InDro’s offerings, these can be customized with additional sensors and teleoperation capabilities based on client needs.

“We have had a mandate since Day One that we want to be experts in unmanned systems,” says Head of R&D Sales Luke Corbeth. “To date, that’s really meant just UAVs and ground robots. But ultimately, we want to be experts on land, air and water. This is our first move into water, and I’m incredibly excited.”

We all are. If you’re interested in our offerings, contact us to learn more.

Feature image at top of story shows the DataXplorer in action; photo courtesy of Open Ocean Robotics

Meet InDro’s Engineering Manager Arron Griffiths: Roboticist & Foodie who’s learned from failure

Meet InDro’s Engineering Manager Arron Griffiths: Roboticist & Foodie who’s learned from failure

Nov 1, 2024 | Engineering, InDro News, InDro Profile, Scott Simmie

By Scott Simmie

 

Looking for some authentic British fish & chips in the Ottawa area?

Well, come next spring there’s going to be a new food truck in town. “Spuds & Stuff” will offer fish & chips, poutine – plus some surprises not yet on the menu. The truck is being outfitted right now (well, not specifically ‘right’ now) and the plan is for it to be ready to go by then. It will also offer gluten-free fish & chips.

But perhaps the biggest surprise of all? The person behind the counter will be our Engineering Manager, Arron Griffiths.

“There’s actually a British Canadian flag on my food truck to symbolise it’s a British guy in Canada with his Canadian wife making, you know, homestyle fish and chips,” he says.

It’s symbolic not only of his love of cooking and food, but also his approach to life: Pursue your dreams, whether that’s robotics, cooking and meeting people – or a balance of both.

“I’m chasing, I’m following my dream, right,” he smiles.

And so he is. Which is also, coincidentally, what brought him to InDro Robotics.

Below: Arron Griffiths, left of centre (and standing next to InDro Robotics Founder/CEO Philip Reece, who’s wearing the jacket) with members of Team InDro at Area X.O

Area XO DARTT

IN THE BLOOD

 

Born and raised in Birmingham, UK, technology is literally in Arron’s genes. Yes, he had an interest in Japanese animé as a child, which sparked his passion for robots. But he grew up in a household (and from a bloodline) of engineers, makers and builders that the family has traced back to 1740 – 20 years before the start of the Industrial Revolution.

Arron’s father was an engineer who brought the internet to major UK companies in the late 1980s and early 90s; Bill Clinton is even said to have sent him an email to mark the accomplishment. So the boy who would eventually become our Engineering Manager grew up in a house that always had the latest computers, was always plugged-in to the cutting-edge. His was the first family to have internet on its street.

But it wasn’t just his father.

“My father is an internet engineer and my grandfather was a welder by trade, and then his father was an engineer and we think his father was an engineer,” says Griffiths. “There’s a lineage on my dad’s side of engineers and skilled trades we believe going all the way back to being tinkerers or something.”

It’s not surprising that Griffiths knew from an early age that he wanted to someday work with robots. Design them, build them – and contribute toward a future where robots might one day perform mundane tasks at scale to give humans extra time to explore more fulfilling and creative tasks; to enjoy life more.

“I knew I wanted to do robots when I got older but everyone laughed at me. I was very much the weird kid in that sense.”

There would be a few bumps along the way. Though doing well in math and physics, Griffiths “meandered” a bit during one year at college in the UK, which he likens to senior high school. He did more than meander: He failed. And so he pivoted and attended a hands-on vocational school, where he learned about electronics and computers in control. He learned to code in C language and more. He was making things.

“I did well at the college because it’s very much what I was really interested in. And then at 19 I went to the University of Plymouth and started my BSc Bachelor of Science in Robotics,” he says.

He thought he had a pretty good grasp on all things technical, and – like many starting out in university – he enjoyed the party life and didn’t yet fully appreciate the commitment a demanding major requires. The result? He would once again fail – this time, during his second year.

“But it was actually a good thing that I kept failing,” he reflects. “I think, in hindsight, I probably thought I knew more than I did.”

 

SOUL SEARCHING

 

After that second failure, Arron knew he needed to be absolutely certain if he were on the correct path. So he took a trip to the US to reflect, traveling and exploring the east coast for a little over a month.

“And I was trying to find out if I really wanted to do this, if I really wanted to be a robotics engineer, if I had the skill set. Did I really want to do this?” he recalls.

Thankfully for InDro, he did. Arron returned to the UK and completed his degree in 2008 – not exactly the best year to go job-searching. With the help of his mother he stayed on at Plymouth University and completed his Masters degree. He also became deeply involved in the university’s robotic soccer team. In fact, his thesis was about building a robot goaltender.

“And my dissertation was you can never lose a football match if you never let a goal in – you can only ever draw or win. And then essentially I was like: So I’ve got to develop a goalkeeper that never lets a goal in, right?”

His work led him to be hired by the University after graduation to keep on working with the robot football team and be a teaching assistant in the lecture halls. That 1.5-year contract was extended another year, and soon Griffiths was traveling extensively.

“I went to Germany, Korea, Taiwan doing the competitions for this team. I learned a lot about bipedal robots and vision systems and autonomy and localizing. I was still learning – so it was almost like getting another degree.”

Exciting though that was, Griffiths knew he didn’t want to spend his career inside an institution. In some ways, being back in the lecture halls – even if he was the one giving the lecture – felt like still being trapped in school. He wanted more. And so he left Plymouth University and, briefly, found himself unemployed.

“If you’re listening, I fail a lot, right?” he laughs, “I fail and then I pick myself up.”

Below: Arron’s robotic goaltender and action. Like its creator, it too fails on occasion – but is a great example of his early work with machine vision and AI. (Side note: the CBC later did a feature on the University of Plymouth’s robotic football team.)

CUMBRIA TO CANADA

 

Determined to not only remain in robotics but find new challenges, he landed a job at the University of Manchester designing and building robots to be used in nuclear facilities, including submersible robots that could carry out fuel-rod inspections. The work took him to a remote location next to Scotland in Cumbria, because that’s where the nuclear facility was. It was there he was faced with the challenge of taking some strangers with high-level skillsets and building not only robots – but a team. It was called the RAIN Hub, where RAIN stands for Robotics and AI in Nuclear.

Arron’s big project there was to design and build a ground vehicle that could autonomously explore massive nuclear facilities and map any radiation contamination: A task that perfectly fits the Dirty Dull and Dangerous. Arron built the Carma for the task, using a Clearpath platform as the base. It also got him interested in the company. (Quick aside: He would also meet his future wife while working in that lonely outpost.)

He had a friend and supporter who worked at Clearpath and who put in a good word when a posting for Applications Engineer came up. Arron applied and received an offer – but there was a catch. The offer had an expiry date to accept, and Arron was still waiting for his visa to be able to work in Canada. It wasn’t clear if the visa would be in place in time to accept the offer.

It was close. With two weeks remaining, he got the paperwork – and prepared to scramble. He had about 10 days to pack up, sell whatever he could, and move to Waterloo.

Though heading to Clearpath, he was getting closer to InDro.

Below: the Carma in action.

CLEARPATH, COVID, CITIZENSHIP

 

In March of 2019, Griffiths arrived and, after finding his feet in Waterloo, started working at Clearpath. As Senior Applications Engineer, there was a lot of “client-facing” engineering.

“I would negotiate essentially what we would deliver and what they would get by when, because people have very grandiose ideas about robots about what they expect robots to be capable of doing. Sometimes I had to readjust those expectations by saying: ‘Do you have one million dollars?'” he laughs. “That’s also where I met Peter.” (He’s referring here to InDro Vice President Peter King.)

Arron’s second year at Clearpath was during COVID lockdowns, and he spent much of the year working from home. He was also reflecting on whether being a Senior Applications Engineer was the right job for him. That’s when Peter (by this point at InDro) called him up and asked Arron if he might be interested in a more senior position with a newer robotics company.

And that…is how Arron came to Area X.O.– where he’ll mark his fourth anniversary early next year, along with an impressive number of successful milestones.

Griffiths has overseen both the design and build of many projects (including a highly complex design and build for one of the world’s largest technology companies) – and scaled a very small engineering team to a large one. It’s been an utter transformation for InDro…and for Arron.

“When I first started, although I was Engineering Manager by title, I wasn’t by practice. I was very much the senior engineer doing operations and engineering. But in the last two years I very much feel like the Engineering Manager. I have a team of people that I delegate to. I do the tasking and the timing and the synching.”

He’s also shown an extraordinary talent in selecting people who gel in a collaborative team setting – and striking the perfect balance between hard work at the office and team celebrations like meals out, bowling, miniature golf. Striking that balance between being a manager and being a colleague/friend is like “walking a tightrope,” he says.

“When you’re celebrating people and the InDro accomplishments they’ve made, I’m very happy and jolly. But when you’re asking someone to get something done, you’re pretty dry and straightforward, right? That gives them an indication that this is not me as Aaron asking you, this is me as Engineering Manager saying, ‘Hey, these are the tasks we need to get done.’ So my mannerisms are different – I’m very matter-of-fact when I’m the boss and a bit more casual and emoji happy when I’m being me.”

 

OUTSIDE INDRO

 

Remember the Canadian woman he met while up doing that nuclear robotics work? Well, physicist Marisa Smith and Griffiths continued to make it work – even when she was living in the US and he was at Clearpath. Every two weeks, Arron would pack up and drive eight hours to and back from South Bend, Indiana, to see her.

They married during COVID – and would hold a more public ceremony where others could help celebrate in Jamaica in February of 2023. Both cat lovers, Arron says “Marisa is the smart one in the house.” He applied for Canadian citizenship and, earlier this year in an online ceremony, took his pledge.

“I did it because I wanted to be a Canadian – I wanted to feel like I belonged. I didn’t want to be a foreigner anymore,” he says. “I wanted to be part of the country.”

We are grateful he is. And we look forward to trying out his food truck (yes, that really is a thing) this coming spring.

If it’s as good as his robots and work ethic – and we’re confident it will be – there should be no shortage of customers.

Below: The day Arron received his Canadian citizenship in a virtual ceremony (note the elaborate pathways for cats on the walls – he and his wife are cat people). Image two: A celebratory graphic, created and posted internally. Image three: The food truck! Image four: Griffiths and his wife, physicist Marisa Smith (whom Arron refers to as “the smart one in the house”).

Arron Citizenship
Arron Citizenship
Arron food truck
Arron and Marisa Smith

INDRO’S TAKE

 

We consider ourselves incredibly fortunate to have an engineering manager both as capable and as personable as Arron. He has contributed hugely to the growth and success of our Area X.O team, overseeing complex projects on tight deadlines while always ensuring he’s celebrating the accomplishments of others. He has created a special “InDro Kudos” chat channel, where every week he praises employees who have excelled at specific tasks.

“Arron is not only an outstanding engineer and roboticist – he’s also a tremendous manager and team leader,” says InDro Founder and CEO Philip Reece. “He is constantly mentoring others, sharing any and all skills to help move the company as a whole forward. I look forward to trying his fish & chips – and wonder how long it will be before he integrates a robotic arm in his operations.”

Vice President Peter King concurs.

“It was really fortuitous for the future of InDro Robotics that Arron and I met at Clearpath,” he says. “The intelligence, energy and enthusiasm that Arron brings to the job are incredible – and he’s behind so many of the InDro successes of the past several years. He’s the perfect person in the perfect position; an exact fit.”

We hope you enjoyed learning more about Griffiths. If you enjoyed this story, you might like this profile of two Area X.O employees who began their journey in India.

And, yes, we’ll tell you when his truck is ready.

Feature image at top of story by Scott Simmie, InDro Robotics

 

TLR – Technology Readiness Levels – explained

TLR – Technology Readiness Levels – explained

Dec 4, 2023 | Engineering, InDro News, Industry News, Scott Simmie

By Scott Simmie

 

So: You’ve got a great idea for a new technology product or process.

That’s the first step: A concept that you’ve put some thought into. Of course, there’s a long road ahead before that brilliant idea becomes an actual commercial product. But how do you gauge that progress as you move along the development path? How would you describe where you’re at in a way that others might quickly grasp?

Luckily, there’s a tool for that. It’s called the Technology Readiness Levels scale, or TRL.

“It’s a standard measuring stick for everyone to communicate where they are with development,” explains InDro Robotics Engineering Lead Arron Griffiths.

The TRL tool was first developed by NASA researcher Stan Sadin back in 1974 with seven basic levels. It would take another 15 years before the levels were formally defined, during which time two additional levels were added. There are now nine steps up the ladder, where TRL 9 is the equivalent of a working product that could be mass-produced or commercialized.

Which means, of course, that Level 1 is at the very beginning of the technology development process.

“Level 1 is universally seen as a napkin idea – where you’ve jotted down a concept,” says Griffiths.

That’s a perfect analogy for TRL 1.

For greater clarity, each level on the scale offers a short definition, a description, and examples of activities. The short definition for Level 1 is “Basic Principles Observed and Reported.” The description is “Lowest level of technology readiness. Scientific research begins to be translated into applied research and development (R&D).”

In terms of examples, Level 1 “Activities might include theoretical studies of a technology’s basic properties.” And yes, that could include a napkin sketch.

Below: Aerospace is one of many industries to use TRLs. The noise-reducing chevron nozzles seen on the cowling below would have gone through each of the nine levels. Photo via Wikimedia Commons by John Crowley.

TRL chevrons

MOVING UP THE SCALE

 

Great! You’ve got that napkin sketch done.

Obviously there’s a lot to do between that initial idea and a finished product suitable for commercialization. To get to TRL 2, you simply need to put more thought into it. You’re not actually building or programming yet, just putting greater clarity and focus on what you hope to accomplish.

TRL 2 is defined as “Technology concept and/or application formulated.” Here’s its description:

“Invention begins. Once basic principles are observed, practical applications can be invented. Applications are speculative, and there may be no proof or detailed analysis to support the assumptions.”

You could think of this stage as refining the idea, with activities limited to research and/or analytical studies.

TRL 3 means you’re actually beginning the R&D process. This might include some lab or analytical studies. At this stage you’re trying to validate predictions you’ve made about separate elements or components of the technology. The components you’re working with aren’t yet integrated – nor is it expected that the components you’re working with are at their final version.

TWO TRL SCALES

Before we move along, it’s worth noting there are actually two different TRL scales in use. The first (and the one we’re using here) is the NASA scale. But the European Union has its own TRL scale. 

“So there is some cloudiness,” explains Griffiths. “Typically the top and bottom of the scales are the same, but the middle moves around a bit. You have to be sure people are reading from the same scale. Typically when I talk to a client, I will show them the scale I am using.”

Griffiths also emphasizes that during R&D, the phase of development doesn’t always slot neatly into one of the TRL stages. 

“It’s typical to say: ‘We’re roughly about TRL 6’ – it’s not an exact science.”

Below: The InDro Commander module, with LiDAR sensor. This popular commercial product, which allows for rapid integration of ROS-based robots and sensors (and more), is TRL 9.

Teleoperated Robots

CLIMBING THE LADDER

 

American inventor Thomas Edison once said: “Genius is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration.” The same could be said of the process of inventing a product for commercialization. Once that napkin sketch is done (the one per cent), there’s still a lot of methodical slogging ahead. (Trust us, we know.)

TRL 4 is the stage where you’re putting things together. Basic components are integrated and readied for testing in a simulated environment. The short definition, via Canada’s Department of National Defence, is “Component(s)/subsystem(s) and/or process validation in a laboratory environment.”

The logical progression continues with the next step.

“TRL 5 means it’s ready for testing in a lab environment,” explains InDro Lead Engineer Griffiths. He also adds that this middle stage – TRL 4 through 7 – “is always the difficult part.”

Once TRL 5 is passed, it’s time to start seeing if the integrated components will work together in a simulated or lab environment. At this stage, TRL 6, the product is considered to be getting pretty close to its desired configuration. Yes, there will be further tweaking to come, but you’re getting there.

Below: InDro’s Street Smart Robot (the large white unit). The product has been built but not yet deployed in winter conditions. This would be at TRL 7. Every other robot in this image would have made it to TRL 9.

 

SSR Street Smart Robot

NEARLY THERE!

 

All that hard work has been paying off. Your product is assembled and has been tested in simulation or other lab environment. Now it’s time to get it out into the real world to see how it performs. Congratulations, you’ve reached TRL 7, where “Prototype system [is] ready (form, fit, and function) for demonstration in an appropriate operational environment.”

“TRL 7 is more like a long-term deployment. Once you can show it to be working in a real-world environment – outside of the lab – then you get to Levels 8 and 9,” says Griffiths.

These final two levels are usually pretty exciting. Once the product/solution has been proven to work in its final form – and in the environment where it’s expected to be deployed as a product – you’ve reached TRL 8. Just one more to go.

 

THE FINAL LEVEL

 

Remember that Street Smart Robot you just saw a picture of? Well, it’s ready to go. And once the wintry conditions take hold in Ottawa, we’ll be operating that machine in ice and snow on Ottawa streets. Specifically, on bike lanes in Ottawa, where it will detect hazardous conditions (including potholes) that might pose challenges for safe cycling. City of Ottawa maintenance crews will then be notified of the problem (and its location) so they can address the issue. (You can read more about the SSR here.)

And once the SSR is operating smoothly in those intended conditions? We will have achieved TRL 9, meaning “Actual solution proven through successful deployment in an operational setting.”

NOT ALWAYS A SMOOTH PATH

 

It’s easy enough to describe these levels. And in doing so, it can appear to be a straightforward, linear path where engineers move seamlessly from one level to the next. Reality is not quite so simple. Depending on the project, progress in the early stages can be made very rapidly.

“Most people get up to Level 5 fairly quickly,” says Griffiths. “You can even get to Level 5 in a day if you’re doing software development – you can literally go from an idea all the way up to a basic rudimentary prototype.”

But – as flagged earlier – things get a little trickier once you hit those middle levels.

“You can think of it as walking up a hill to Level 5,” he says. “Then there’s this valley. A lot of stuff dies in Level 6 and 7. There’s not a lot of success there because once you push the technology into actual environments the success rate is very low. So a lot of time is spent in Levels 5 and 6 trying to make a system that can make it to Level 7 successfully, and then on to Level 8 – where you’re essentially across the valley.”

Below: A graphic outlines the short definitions of Technology Readiness Levels

Technology Readiness Levels

INDRO’S TAKE

 

The TRL scale is extremely useful in the R&D world, in that it concisely conveys where a product is along the path to commercial development. And while it’s great for engineers, it’s also useful to help clients understand where one of our products is along that journey.

We’ve scaled this ladder many times over the years. Sometimes it’s a relatively easy climb. But, like all Research and Development companies, we’ve also had a few products that never made it beyond the valley Arron Griffiths described. That’s R&D.

“The Technology Readiness Level scale is a really useful tool, and part of our daily language at InDro Robotics,” says CEO Philip Reece. “Each level represents unique challenges – and that valley Arron described can sometimes be a disappointing bit of landscape. But we learn something even with the occasional failure.

“Thankfully, we have a creative and tenacious engineering team that seems to thrive on difficult challenges – and InDro now has a growing stable of products that have achieved TRL 9 and gone on to commercial success.”

If you’re working on your own project and would like to know where it is on the TRL scale, you can use this assessment tool from Industry, Science and Economic Development Canada.

 

uPenn robotics team cleans up at SICK LiDAR competition

uPenn robotics team cleans up at SICK LiDAR competition

Jun 19, 2023 | AgileX, Engineering, Industry News, Innovation, Scott Simmie

By Scott Simmie

 

There’s nothing we like more than success stories – especially when technology is involved.

So we’re pleased to share news that a team of bright young engineers from the University of Pennsylvania were the winners of a prestigious competition sponsored by SICK, the German-based manufacturer of LiDAR sensors and industrial process automation technology.

The competition is called the SICK TiM $10K Challenge. The competition involves finding innovative new uses for the company’s TiM-P 2D LiDAR sensor. Laser-based LiDAR sensors scan the surrounding environment in real-time, producing highly accurate point clouds/maps. Paired with machine vision and AI, LiDAR can be used to detect objects – and even avoid them.

And that’s a pretty handy feature if your robot happens to an autonomous garbage collector. We asked Sharon Shaji, one of five UPenn team members (all of whom earned their Masters in Robotics this year), for the micro-elevator pitch:

“It’s an autonomous waste collection robot that can be used specifically for cleaning outdoor spaces,” she says.

And though autonomous, it obviously didn’t build itself.

Below: Members of the team during work on the project.

uPenn Sauberbot

THE COMPETITION

 

When SICK announced the contest, it had a very simple criteria: “The teams will be challenged to solve a problem, create a solution, and bring a new application that utilizes the SICK scanner in any industry.”

SICK received applications from universities across the United States. It then whittled those down to 20 submissions it felt had real potential, and supplied those teams with the TiM-P 270 LiDAR sensor free of charge.

Five students affiliated with UPenn’s prestigious General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception Laboratory, or GRASP Lab, put in a team application. It was one of three GRASP lab teams that would receive sensors from SICK.

That Lab is described here as “an interdisciplinary academic and research center within the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. Founded in 1979, the GRASP Lab is a premier robotics incubator that fosters collaboration between students, research staff and faculty focusing on fundamental research in vision, perception, control systems, automation, and machine learning.”

Before we get to building the robot, how do you go about building a team? Do you just put smart people together – or is there a strategy? In this case, there was.

“One thing we all kept in mind when we were looking for teammates was that we wanted someone from every field of engineering,” explains Shaji. In other words, a multidisciplinary team.

“So we have people from the mechanical engineering background, electrical engineering background, computer science background, software background. We were easily able to delegate work to every person. I think that was important in the success of the product. And we all knew each other, so it was like working with best friends.”

 

GENESIS

 

And how did the idea come about?

Well, says the team (all five of whom hopped on a video call with InDro Robotics), they noticed a problem in need of a solution. Quite frequently on campus – and particularly after events – they’d noticed that the green space was littered. Cans, bottles, wrappers – you name it.

They also noticed that crews would be dispatched to clean everything up. And while that did get the job done, it wasn’t perhaps the most efficient way of tackling the problem. Nor was it glamorous work. It was arguably a dirty and dull job – one of the perfect types of tasks for a robot to take on.

“Large groups of people were coming in and manually picking up this litter,” says Shaji.

“And we realised that automation was the right way to solve that problem. It’s unhygienic, there are sanitation concerns, and physically exhausting. Robots don’t get tired, they don’t get exhausted…we thought this was the best use-case and to move forward with.”

Below: Working on the mechanical side of things

uPenn SICK Sauberbot

GETTING STARTED

 

You’d think, with engineers, the first step in this project would have been to kick around design concepts. But the team focussed initially on market research. Were there similar products out there already? Would there be a demand for such a device? How frequently were crews dispatched for these cleanups? How long, on average, does it take humans to carry out the task? How many people are generally involved? Those kinds of questions.

After that process, they began discussing the nuts and bolts. One of the big questions here was: How should the device go about collecting garbage? Specifically, how should it get the garbage off the ground?

“Cleaning outdoor spaces can vary, because outdoor spaces can vary,” says team member Aadith Kumar. “You might have sandy terrain, you might have open parks, you might have uneven terrain. And each of these pose their own problems. Having a vacuum system on a beach area isn’t going to work because you’re going to collect a lot of sand. The vision is to have a modular mechanism.”

A modular design means flexibility: Different pickup mechanisms would be swappable for specific environments without requiring an entirely new robot. A vacuum system might work well in one setting, a system with the ability to individually pick items of trash might work better somewhere else.

The team decided their initial prototype should focus on open park space. And once that decision was made, it became clear that a brush mechanism, which would sweep the garbage from the grass into a collection box, would be the best solution for this initial iteration.

“We considered vacuum, we considered picking it up, we considered targeted suction,” says Kumar. “But at the end of the day, for economics, it needed to be efficient, fast, nothing too complicated. And the brush mechanism is tried and tested.”

Below: Work on the brush mechanism

 

 

uPenn SICK Sauberbot

SAUBERBOT

 

The team decided to call its robot the SauberBOT. “Sauber” is the German word for “clean”. But that sweeping brush mechanism would be just one part of the puzzle. Other areas to be tackled included:

  • Depth perception camera for identifying trash to be picked up
  • LiDAR programmed so that obstacles, including people, could be avoided
  • Autonomy within a geofenced location – ie, the boundaries of the park to be cleaned

There was more, of course, but one of the most important pieces of the puzzle was the robotic platform itself: The means of locomotion. And that’s where InDro Robotics comes in.

 

THE INDRO CONNECTION

 

Some team members had met InDro Account Executive Luke Corbeth earlier in the year, at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, held in Philadelphia in 2022. Corbeth had some robotic platforms from AgileX – which InDro distributes in North America – at the show. At the time the conference took place, the SICK competition wasn’t yet underway. But the students remembered Corbeth – and vice versa.

Once the team formed and entered the contest, discussions with InDro began around potential platforms.

The team was initially leaning toward the AgileX Bunker – a really tough platform that operates with treads, much like a tank. At first glance, those treads seemed like the ideal form of locomotion because they can operate on many different surfaces.

But Luke steered them in a different direction, toward the (less-expensive) Scout 2.0.

“He was the one who suggested the Scout 2.0,” says Udayagiri.

“We actually were thinking of going for the Bunker – but he understood that for our use-case the Scout 2.0 was a better robot. And it was very easy to work with the Scout.”

Corbeth also passed along the metal box that houses the InDro Commander. This enabled the team to save more time (and potential hassle) by housing all of their internal components in an IP-rated enclosure.

“I wanted to help them protect their hardware in an outdoor environment,” he says. “They had a tight budget, and UPenn is a pretty prominent robotics program in the US.”

But buying from InDro begs the question: Why not build their own? A team of five roboticists would surely be able to design and build something like that, right? Well, yes. But they knew they were going to have plenty of work on their own without having to build something from scratch. Taking this on would divert them from their core R&D tasks.

“We knew we would do it in a month or two,” says the team’s Rithwik Udayagiri. “But that would have left us with less time for market research and actually integrating our product, which is the pickup mechanism. We would have been spending too much time on building a platform. So that’s why we went with a standalone platform.”

It took a little longer than planned to get the recently released Scout 2.0 in the hands of the UPenn team. But because of communication with Luke (along with the InDro-supplied use of the Gazebo robot simulation platform), the team was able to quickly integrate the rest of the system with Scout 2.0 soon after it arrived.

“The entire project was ROS-based (Robot Operating System software), and they used our simulation tools, mainly Gazebo, to start working on autonomy,” explains Corbeth. “Even though it took time to get them the unit, they were ready to integrate their tech and get it out in the field very quickly. That was the one thing that blew me away was how quickly they put it together.”

It wasn’t long before SauberBOT was a reality. The team produced a video for its final submission to SICK. The SauberBOT team took first place, winning $10,000 plus an upcoming trip to Germany, where they’ll visit SICK headquarters.

Oh, and SauberBOT? The team says it cleans three times more quickly than using a typical human crew. 

Here’s the video.

 

A CO-BOT, NOT A ROBOT

 

Team SauberBOT knows some people are wary of robots. Some believe they will simply replace human positions and put people out of work.

That’s not the view of these engineers. They see SauberBOT – and other machines like it – as a way of helping to relieve people from boring, physically demanding and even dangerous tasks. They also point out that there’s a labour shortage, particularly in this sector.

“The cleaning industry is understaffed,” reads a note sent by the team. “We choose to introduce automation to the repetitive and mundane aspects of the cleaning industry in an attempt do the tasks that there aren’t enough humans to do.”
 
 
And what about potential jobs losses?
 
 
“We intend to make robots that aren’t aimed to replace humans,” they write.
 
 
“We want to equip the cleaning staff with the tools to handle the mundane part of cleaning outdoor spaces and therefore allow the workforce to target their attention to the more nuanced parts of cleaning which demand human attention.”
 
In other words, think of SauberBOT as a co-operative robot meant to assist but not replace humans. These are sometimes called “co-bots.” 
 
 
Below: Testing out the SauberBOT in the field
UPenn SICK SauberBOT

INDRO’S TAKE

 

We’re obviously pleased to have played a small role in the success of the UPenn team. And while we often service very large clients – including building products on contract for some global tech giants – there’s a unique satisfaction that comes from this kind of relationship.

“It’s very gratifying,” says Corbeth. “In fact, it’s the essence of what I try to do: Enable others to build really cool robots.”

The SauberBOT is indeed pretty cool. And InDro will be keeping an eye on what these young engineers do next.

“The engineering grads of today are tomorrow’s startup CEOs and CTOs,” says InDro Robotics Founder/CEO Philip Reece.

“We love seeing this kind of entrepreneurial spirit, where great ideas and skills lead to the development of new products and processes. In a way, it’s similar to what InDro does on a larger scale. Well done, Team SauberBOT – there’s plenty of potential here for a product down the road.”

If you’ve got a project that could use a robotic platform – or any other engineering challenge that taps into InDro’s expertise with ground robots, drones and remote teleoperations – feel free to get in touch with Luke Corbeth here.

Area X.O unveils new simulation portal

Area X.O unveils new simulation portal

Jun 13, 2023 | Area X.O, Engineering, Innovation, Scott Simmie

By Scott Simmie

 

Area X.O, the Ottawa facility founded and operated by Invest Ottawa that houses cutting-edge companies involved in robotics and smart mobility R&D, has unveiled a powerful new tool.

It’s a simulation portal that will allow firms to virtually test products under development. Want to put a robot through its paces on the roads at Area X.O to evaluate its propulsion system and battery life? Have a drone overfly and capture data? Maybe you want to test in snow and cold temperatures, despite it being summertime?

Unless you happen to be an Area X.O tenant, carrying out any of these tasks in real life would involve getting permission, getting your product to the site – even waiting for months and taking multiple trips if you wanted to test under a variety of weather conditions. The costs on this would quickly add up, and your development time would stretch.

With the new simulator, you can put your robot or drone (or sensor) through their paces remotely – whether you’re in Ottawa, Vancouver, or even further afield. And you can use the data gathered in the simulator to improve and refine your real-world product.

“Until recently, Area X.O was limited to the physical world,” said Patrick Kenny, Senior Director of Marketing and Communications for Invest Ottawa, Area X.O and Bayview Yards.

“This past winter, Area X.O launched a simulation discovery portal powered by Ansys. The simulation portal and program promotes simulation and its ability to reduce time, cost, effort and risk by getting breakthrough innovations to market faster. Innovators now have a new option to consider.”

Kenny made his remarks during a June 7 webinar. During that event, Area X.O engineers Barry Stoute and Hossain Samei explained how the system works – and even carried out a real-time demonstration.

 

Area X.O simulation portal

POWERED BY ANSYS

 

The brains behind the system come from Ansys, which has been in the simulation software business for more than 50 years. It is widely considered to be the most powerful software of its kind.

“Simulation is an artificial representation of a physical model,” explained simulation engineer Dr. Stoute. He went on to explain, at a high level, two different types of simulation: Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and Digital Mission Engineering.

In a nutshell, FEA uses software (and really good computers) to see how different models behave under different conditions. The model can be anything: A robot, an antenna, a drone – you name it.

“Finite Element Analysis solves for mechanical structures, thermal analysis, electronics and optical (components),” explained Dr. Stoute. Want to know what temperature a component might heat to under load? Determine how a transmitter or antennae might behave in differing temperatures? Even “see” what an optical sensor might capture when mounted on a robot? Plug in the right parameters and powerful computing will give the answer.

 

DIGITAL MISSION ENGINEERING

 

This type of simulation is a way of designing a complex system, particularly where multiple assets interact with another in a simulated environment. In the example seen below, Dr. Stoute says a digital mission engineer could create a model where a drone capturing data interacts with multiple objects. These include satellite communications, a ground station, along with multiple vehicles. The drone’s mission is to capture data from the ground, but the engineer is interested in seeing the Big Picture – the ways in which all these different assets will interact.

The mission engineer can select and modify the parameters of every asset in that model. How powerful is the ground station and what range will it provide? What speed is the aircraft flying at, and at what altitude. What type of aircraft is it? What sensors are on the drone and what are their specifications? What is the battery life? What are the specifications of the drone’s motors? The ambient temperature and wind conditions?

The options are dizzying. But the software – along with a well-trained mission engineer – can create a virtual world where the data outcomes closely predict what would happen in a real-world mission.

“If an engineer creates a physical product and it doesn’t work as planned, they have to go back and remodel it,” explained Dr. Stoute. The simulation environment, by contrast, allows the engineer to tweak that product in a virtual environment without the expense of real-world modifications. Once the product is working well in simulation, those learnings can be applied to the actual physical product.

Plus, of course, weather parameters can easily be changed; something impossible in real-world testing (unless you’ve got lots of time on your hands).

“Should he wait until January to get a blizzard to test the product?” asked Dr. Stoute.

“No, it doesn’t make sense. The simulator can simulate blizzard conditions.”

 

Below: Dr. Stoute explains how Digital Mission Engineering works during the webinar

 

Digital Mission Engineering

REAL-TIME DEMONSTRATION

 

Now that the basics were explained, the webinar moved on to demonstrate these concepts. Area X.O engineer Hossain Samei took over the controls, doing a real-time demo of the sim’s capabilities.

For this, Samei used not only the Ansys core system, but another powerful piece of software called Ansys AVxcelerate, which is used to test and validate sensors for self-driving cars. That means you can plug in virtual sensors, including all of their technical parameters, into the system. And not simply the sensors on the cars. In this simulation, which features a very high-resolution 3D map of the Area X.O complex, Hossain also had sensors that are on the Area X.O site embedded into this virtual world.

“This digital twin also includes the infrastructure embedded into our smart city zone,” explained Samei. “This includes multiple sensors, optical cameras, roadside units, thermal cameras and LiDAR cameras.” The model even includes functioning railroad crossing gates.

“We’re able to simulate the arms moving up and down,” he said.

And remember how the Ansys system can simulate weather? The mission engineer can also tailor lighting conditions – very useful for testing visual sensors.

 

VIRTUAL TEST DRIVE

 

Samei already had the digital twin of Area X.O defined. He then quickly put together an autonomous vehicle and camera sensor using AVxcelerate.

“Once we have our car defined, as well as the sensors on the vehicle, we’re able to move on to choosing a car simulator,” said Hossain.

In order to help the car drive on Area X.O’s terrain, Hossain turned to the Open-Source Webots robot simulator.

“With WeBots, you can define your vehicle, including its suspension, power train and other features to define the vehicle dynamics of the car,” said Samei.

And now? It was time for a drive.

Samei began to pilot the car around Area X.O – showing as well that he could change the setting from a clear and dry day to one with snow on the ground with just a few clicks. As the car drove down the road, you could see some of the Smart City sensors that are physically (and virtually) embedded in the Area X.O environment.

“You can see as we pull up, all of the sensors in the environment are visible. That kind of demonstrates what we’re able to do with this model,” he said.

 

VIRTUAL DRONE FLIGHT

 

Samei then moved on to programming an autonomous drone flight over one of the experimental farm fields that surround the Area X.O facility. For this portion of the demo, he utilized the Ansys STK toolkit – specifically designed for Digital Mission Engineering. You’ll recall Dr. Stoute spoke of this, and its ability to simulate entire systems – including ground stations, satellite communication, etc.

Samei defined the area of the field to be scanned, then “built” the quadcopter by selecting motors, battery, propellors – even the pitch of the blades.

“We end up with a very accurate model of a drone that reflects its actual performance,” he said.

He also programmed the altitude of the drone and the density of the scan – with passes over the field 400′ apart. With that and a few more clicks (all in real-time, which was pretty impressive to watch), he sent the drone off on its mission.

The virtual drone quickly scanned the desired area and returned to base with power to spare. Samei then plotted a more tightly focussed grid – lower altitude and more overlap, with grid passes 200′ apart – for greater data density. Then he send the quadcopter off again.

In this example, Samei was interested in whether the quadcopter could cover the scan with its existing power supply. He was also keen to learn if the ground station would be able to communicate with the drone throughout its mission. Both of these questions were answered in the affirmative without having to use a physical drone.

“We were able to verify the flight does not need more energy than the battery can provide,” he observed. “We can (also) see the minimum signal strength required – so indeed we are able to maintain consistent communication throughout the mission.”

That was impressive enough. But get this: The simulation software can even account for potential signal interference caused by buildings. And such flights – whether it’s a drone or a Cessna or a business jet – are not limited to Area X.O. Ansys STK has a database or pretty much anywhere on the planet.

“You can simulate your missions and flights over anywhere on earth,” said Samei.

 

Below: A screen capture during Samei Hossain’s real-time demo. Here, he’s configuring the technical parameters for a simulated quadcopter’s propulsion system

Area X.O Ansys simulator

WAIT, THERE’S MORE

 

The real-time demo was impressive. But it left one wondering: What kind of a computer do you need to make these kind of simulations actually work? Surely the computational power required exceeds what most of us carry around on our laptop.

And that’s true. But the good news is, the Area X.O simulator portal includes access to the precise kind of computer required.

“What we’re providing with our simulation services is access to our computers,” said Samei.

“We have the workstations necessary that have the computational power, the memory, that’s able to simulate these problems very fast. So it’s not necessary for the clients to have a supercomputer in order to run the simulations. We can take that 10-day simulation time down to 10 hours.”

 

THE VIRTUAL ADANTAGE

 

If it wasn’t clear by now (and it surely was), the webinar wrapped with a reminder of why simulation is such a powerful and cost-effective tool for developers.

“We can do more different physics-based simulations such that you don’t have to build…expensive prototypes,” said Dr. Stoute. “People can actually imagine the wildest designs without any limitations. Having your wildest dreams imaginable.”

Engineer Hossain Samei also weighed in.

“One thing I really do believe in is: Knowledge is power,” he said.

“What simulation…lets us know (is) what’s going to happen and not suffer the consequences from actually having to make a product…and then find out: ‘Oops, I have a problem’. Simulation allows you to circumvent that and identify these issues before, where it’s easier to actually solve them.”

 

WANT TO TRY IT?

 

You can! Though the Area X.O simulation portal is ultimately a paid service, those interested in learning more can sign up for further free demos to get a better sense of what this resource is capable of delivering.

Sign up for free on this page.

If you thought you missed a cool demo, you did. But no worries, you can watch a replay of the entire webinar below:

INDRO’S TAKE

 

The Ansys platform is acknowledged as the best simulation platform going. And with the expertise of Area X.O engineers Dr. Barry Stoute and Samei Hossain, we’re confident a solution can be tailored for pretty much any product operating in any environment.

“It’s a normal part of R&D to go through various iterations of products following real-world testing,” says InDro Robotics CEO Philip Reece. “And while products ultimately need to be tested in the real world prior to deployment, high-level simulation can save time, money – and mistakes.

“Even though our R&D hub is situated right at Area X.O, we plan on tapping into this powerful tool to analyze some of our products currently on the drawing board.”

If you’re interested in learning more about this new tool, drop Area X.O a line here. 

 

High-tech jobs aplenty in Ottawa – including with InDro Robotics

High-tech jobs aplenty in Ottawa – including with InDro Robotics

Jul 28, 2022 | Engineering, InDro News, Industry News

Ask someone what they know about Ottawa, and odds are they’ll say it’s home to the Federal Government, multiple world-class museums and the ByWard Market – a destination for locals and visitors alike.

Increasingly, however, the nation’s capital is also becoming known as a high-tech hub. With facilities like the cutting-edge Area X.O – where robotic vehicles and drones are tested daily – Ottawa is becoming something of a technology magnet.

There’s data to back that up. Silicon Valley’s Gigamon recently announced plans to locate a new R&D facility in Ottawa, and the tech sector currently accounts for 11.3 per cent of all jobs in the city.

“When reviewing potential expansion opportunities in North America, we considered a number of attractive options,” Shane Buckley, president and CEO at Gigamon told Invest Ontario. “Ottawa’s diverse workforce and bustling tech community made it the clear choice.”

Taken together, it adds up to jobs.

Below: InDro Robotics engineer Ahmad Tamimi solving problems at Area X.O

Canada Robotics

Job alert

 

A new blog post from Invest Ottawa highlights ten Ottawa high-tech companies that have current current job openings – with many of them advertising multiple openings.

Just one example? RideShark – a mobile app that offers multiple and seamless transportation options – has three positions open: Front-End Developer, Mobile App Developer and Business Development Sales Manager

Here’s more about what RideShark does:

Wait – there’s more!

 

In the Invest Ottawa blog about those jobs, there was also an opening highlighted at InDro Robotics. Here’s a screen grab from the blog, which offers some of the details.

High Tech Jobs

InDro’s Take

 

Well, let’s be honest. We can’t help but be a little biased here.

InDro Robotics is a great place to work. We value team-playing, problem-solving people. Our engineers routinely work together on projects, and also alone – but always within a collaborative atmosphere. We have a diverse group of employees and our retention level is outstanding. Plus, working for InDro is fun: You might be flying a drone one day, or working on a ground robot the next. Trust us on this: No one gets bored.

We have multiple positions open at the moment, including some at our Area X.O location – and others in beautiful British Columbia.

Interested? You can check out the open positions on this page.