As of 2021, at least 3.5 million industrial robots were operating in manufacturing factories worldwide, and industrial robot installations hit an all-time high, according to a 2022 report by the International Federation of Robotics.1 Investment in industrial robots has seen an upward trend since 2010, as manufacturers strive to reduce production costs.

While the manufacturing sector was a first-mover in robotics adoption, we can expect to see a proliferation of robots across all sectors of society, as prices for robots trend lower, and advances in AI make it easier to connect sensory data to understandable language. The robotics market is expected to surpass USD 200 billion by 2030, with a forecasted 16.1% CAGR between 2023-2030.

The logistics and transportation sector are one sector ripe for robotics adoption.

In the past, it was rare for a delivery package to arrive at one’s door. However, today’s consumers now exist in a delivery-centric culture. Deliveries from Amazon, Uber Eats, and other delivery services are made daily, or several times a day for most households.

The transport of goods from point A to B is not just a consumer phenomenon. Thousands of deliveries are made daily in hotels, hospitals, research laboratories, airports and warehouses and more.

These low-weight, low cost and high-volume orders are ideal for robots and companies looking to implement a more environmentally and economically sustainable form of local delivery for their customers, asserts Cameron Waite, CEO and founder of Real Life Robotics, a Canadian-based startup focused on robotics solutions for cargo and last-mile delivery.

"These are jobs that we just simply can't fill right now...it is almost the perfect storm,” says Cameron. “Increased customer demand, decreased supply of delivery drivers and increasing costs associated with inflation, minimum wages and unionization of gig workers means that the only companies that can make money off delivery are the big guys like Walmart. The small main street businesses are missing out. And yet, these businesses are the lifeblood of our economy.

There is a direct correlation between the number of for-lease signs going up, the shuttering of small businesses and the decline of our overall economy. In the next three years, 6 million Canadians will retire from the workforce. There are only 40 million Canadians in total in the country. This is a scenario that is unfolding across every country in the world. By 2030, we will have a labour shortage of 85 million jobs. In addition, those who are in the workforce are looking to perform more personally fulfilling, higher-value roles. Delivering your burrito is not on the top of their list.”

Founded in 2022, Real Life Robotics’ first product, a robot called “Bubs” is a proven cargo & last-mile delivery robot platform with applications in retail/food services, healthcare/FM, agriculture, and real estate/commercial markets. Highly versatile in design, Bubs can be adapted to the needs of each client and is equipped with depth cameras, and other sensors, giving the robot complete visibility of the environment to help navigate safely.

Over the last two years, Real Life has further matured its team and its solution portfolio. The company hired its first CTO, University of Waterloo robotics researcher and professor Brandon DeHart and brought on last-mile delivery and quick commerce pro Sharif Virani as its Head of Growth. On the product front, Real Life is now ready to launch Passenger, its new AI-powered hardware-agnostic robotics fleet management solution, designed to govern Bubs and other robots that might make up a fleet.

“Passenger is like mission control for clients looking to remotely deploy and manage a logistics robot fleet,” explains Cameron.

The Passenger fleet management system has several components. These include:

• A front-end order entry system with a customizable menu, where a delivery request is initiated;
• An order processing system for fulfillment;
• A fleet management component which determines which robot is available and which robot is best suited for the task;
• An automation system, which enables the robot to be driven from point A to point B to facilitate the delivery;
• A piloting system, where a human can remotely step in to assist should the robot encounter a situation or obstacle that it cannot navigate around without assistance;
• A data capture and machine learning system, to collect and analyze all the data captured by the robot’s cameras and sensors and,
• A series of data points that can be easily and repeatedly collected by robotic hardware or sensors, taught and identified using AI-supported machine learning, to generate insights for business decision-making.

Real Life Robotics recently signed an agreement with the Toronto Zoo, the fifth-largest zoo in the world, to deploy Bubs and the new Passenger platform to make deliveries of goods across the zoo’s 700-acre property. For the first phase of the project, Bubs and Passenger will be used to deliver food supplies to zookeepers and the zoo’s 3,000 animals every morning.

“Through this partnership with the Toronto Zoo, we are thrilled to prove a real robotic solution to real-world problems being encountered daily by real people across their campus. This ‘Made In Ontario’ technology is just another example of how our province is becoming known globally as a home for first-in-class robotics and automation technology that have the potential to empower businesses with transformative robotics solutions that can unlock new levels of efficiency, reliability, and scalability,” says Cameron.

“Real Life Robotics’ human-centric approach to robot design and deep understanding of autonomous technology will help us enhance efficiency and productivity and demonstrate how the Toronto Zoo is embracing sustainable technologies to become a globally leading conservation campus. This is a special place where leading research, innovation, and technology can come together to help inspire and train the next generation of Canadian conservationists and scientists,” says Dolf DeJong, CEO, Toronto Zoo.

Real Life has partnered with Bell as its telco partner to leverage 5G for the Toronto Zoo project. “Through 5G connectivity, data is backhauled from Bubs in real time to Passenger’s data lake in the Cloud, allowing the zoo to understand the movement and status of its fleet. As Bubs is also capturing video data it’s vitally important we have sufficient bandwidth and can achieve low latency, offering unfettered access to the status of hardware operating around the zoo.

Real Life Robotics was introduced to Khasm Labs (formerly 5G Open Innovation Labs) through the Waterloo Accelerator Centre. The company was invited to be part of the Lab’s batch 9 and is now a proud Khasm Lab’s alumni. Jim Brisimitzis and his team helped open doors to corporate and investment partners for Cameron Waite and his team, enabling them to build relationships they hope to expand upon now that their company and solutions have matured and are in the market.

Cameron paints a bright future for Real Life, Passenger and Bubs.

“We have pre-SEED funding from RHA Ventures to fuel our growth. We have immersed ourselves in the autonomous vehicle ecosystem, working alongside massive brands such as Tesla, Uber and Waze. We are working with many municipalities to advance their autonomous strategies and to pave the way for robots to serve a vital role in last-mile logistics in our cities. And we’ve signed our first marquee customer. It’s now time to scale, capture marketshare and effectively look at how the world can do delivery differently.”