Robocity, USA? With the rise of robots in San Antonio, were heading that way – mySA

Robots are rising in San Antonio.

That may sound like a cheerleaders refrain from economic development talking points, but when it comes to robots, San Antonio keeps winning.

With the late April news of Plus One Robotics $33 million funding round and expansion, germ-zapping robot maker Xenexs explosive growth and several other companies like Reckon Point, Xyrec and Renu Robotics gaining momentum, the South Texas robot business is booming.

And dont forget Southwest Research Institute and Toyota, San Antonios heavyweights in the robot game.

Then theres the SATX Robotix Meetup, a group of more than 430 people whore either in the business or interested in the industry. Erik Nieves, chief executive and co-founder of Plus One Robotics at Port San Antonio, said the group is better attended than Austins version.

San Antonios special strain of robots are for business or industrial use. These are business-to-business robots, not humanoids like C-3PO or the Terminator. Nor are these machines with household applications like a Roomba or automatic pool cleaner.

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Think robots at work on large-scale disinfecting, building trucks, unpacking pallets, sorting packages, lasering paint off aircraft, mapping building interiors or industrial-sized lawn mowers for solar panel farms.

Consumer robots might come from Asia, or at least Boston, but the application of robot tech to industrial problems is what SA does best, Nieves said.

Before we can riff on the areas robobiz, its worth thinking about what exactly a robot is. The best definition my brain concocted was a machine that performs a task autonomously.

Im no expert, so I turned to some San Antonio robot gurus for their perspective. As it turns out, the answer is, well, complicated.

The definition of robot is not a settled question, said Nieves, whose company specializes in helping robots hand-eye coordination. Many different morphologies, many different applications, but one thing they all have in common is that they have a semblance of programming and move through physical space.

The latter distinction, moving through space, is why appliances like dishwashers and refrigerators arent considered robots, he said.

Perhaps defining robots is akin to (Supreme Court) Justice Potter dealing with obscenity, he said. I cant give you all the rules, but I know it when I see it, and I know what it isnt.

Kris Kozak, principal at Hatchbed, a robotics consulting firm at Port San Antonio, said its a tough question and the lines quickly get blurry.

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Besides humanoid and industrial robots, he cited other categories that could be included. Kozak has worked in robot research and development for more than 20 years, so hes self-admittedly pretty inclusive in his definition.

His list includes self-driving or autonomous vehicles, aircraft and boats, as well as robotic mechanisms like the cable-driven receiver that hangs over a 500-meter telescope in China.

The one bright line that Id draw is that a fundamental attribute of a robot is that it must be able to physically interact with its environment, he said. I guess you could say that a robot has to have a body of some sort, so Alexa and Siri are not robots ... yet.

Peter Boeijink, Xyrecs chief executive, checked in from the Netherlands. His company has a division at Port San Antonio thats pioneering automated painting and paint removal for aircraft and other large equipment.

I like to define a robot as a programmable machine to automate the use or application of a physical process with a high degree of flexibility in movements, he said. By this, a robot can be used in many situations.

All efforts in robot development are to use robots for more applications and make it easier to program the robot for its movements.

Near the airport, Xenex manufactures robots that blast germs including the coronavirus with ultraviolet light. Its seen exponential growth during the pandemic.

Morris Miller, Xenexs chief executive, said his firm defines a robot as a machine programmed by a computer that is capable of carrying out actions automatically.

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And he introduced a new term to our conversation: cobot.

Our LightStrike robot is moved from one location to the next for example, from a patient room to an operating room by a trained technician, so we also like the term cobot to describe the relationship between the robot and its human operator.

So, like so many questions that seem simple at first, the answer to the robot question is nuanced and, apparently, still in debate.

But, whats not in debate is that robots are a growth industry on the rise in San Antonio. Is there a Robocity, USA, yet? Were working on it.

Brandon Lingle writes for the Express-News through Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms. ReportforAmerica.org. brandon.lingle@express-news.net

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Robocity, USA? With the rise of robots in San Antonio, were heading that way - mySA