Why not a talent acquisition? iRobot has the best roboticists MIT has to offer, and a growing trove of patents.
Apple isn't in the cleaning business now. But they weren't in the music business 10 years ago.
Apple isn't in the cleaning business now. But they weren't in the music business 10 years ago.
Really... they go to iRobot rather than NASA and the Joint propulsion Labratory, Boeing, Honda, Lockheed, DARPA, etc...?
How do you think and iRobot's control system compares to an autonomous predator drone?
iRobot was started by Rodney Brooks, at the time the most famous roboticist in North America and Director of CS and AI at MIT, and his students. This team has attracted a lot of good talent over the years. Now the team has broken up and there has been little interesting robot development for a while. But the intelligent robot industry is still very small, and the good grads have to go somewhere. Outside university labs, the hot job recently has been at Willow Garage.
(robot research prof here)