For decades we have celebrated work as an integral part of the human experience. We yearn to be involved in activities that not only provide for our basic needs, but give us a sense of purpose. Work, and doing work that we love, keeps us focused and motivated. Not all work is created equal though, and the future of work is complex.

At InOrbit, most of our time is spent thinking about robots and how to make them perform better. Part of that vision includes robots and humans working together – without the human factor, robots are just a collection of metal and plastic parts. Here is another in a series of posts highlighting some of the outstanding humans on the InOrbit team, also known as InOrbiters. This post in particular aims to share what the experience of being an Intern at InOrbit is like. What drives the kind of people we love to work with, what they’ve learned from the team over their summer internship, and what they find most compelling about robotics.

When we think about the challenges robots face, we often think about the physical tasks they are performing - gripping an object out of a bin, or avoiding getting stuck when delivering materials to a packing station. While many of these challenges still exist, larger problems are often found in the ecosystem surrounding robots.

Software companies, especially ones that can help other companies build products, often use the...

ChatOps, meet RobOps. InOrbit is really happy to share news today about our new incident management integration with the Google Chat platform. This open-source feature lets users receive notifications about their robots, even if the InOrbit app is not open.

At InOrbit, most of our time is spent thinking about robots and how to make them perform better. But part of that vision includes robots and humans working together – without the human factor, robots are just a collection of metal and plastic parts. Here is another in a series of posts highlighting some of the outstanding humans on the InOrbit team, also known as InOrbiters. The posts aim to share details on some members of the team, what drove them to work here, and what they find most interesting about robotics and the development of the InOrbit platform.

Robot operations (RobOps) is not just about making sure robots and humans work well together to complete tasks. It’s also about getting robots and other robots to work well together, especially as an increasing number of companies deploy different robot systems to handle multiple tasks.

One of the hardest parts of growing a company is coming to terms with the inevitable growing pains. Robots add an interesting paradox – while they are inherently built to support scaling, they often add complexity by generating massive amounts of data that requires intelligent processing to manage and drive continuous improvement.

If you wanted to secure a computer server you would typically start with a controlled environment. That means a controlled climate, controlled physical access, strong networking, and some security oversight. In the world of robotics you often see autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) with valuable data roaming around in totally uncontrolled environments, hosting an unsecured web server with little or no firewalls, and interfacing directly with store and warehouse employees, or even the public at large. This wild west environment may bring back painful memories of the early days of the internet, but believe us, the times are changing.

Cleaning is one of the most-hated chores for people, and over the years we’ve seen improvements in automating tasks like vacuuming, washing dishes, and floor cleaning. In commercial locations, we’re now seeing autonomous robots enter the field with self-driving robotic floor scrubbers, and automated disinfection robots to help sanitize hospital rooms and other public areas.