Covariant (industrial robot)

Covariant

Formerly| Embodied Intelligence
Type| Privately held company
Industry| Industrial Robotics; AI Software
Founded| 2017; 4 years ago
Founder| Pieter Abbeel

Rocky Duan Tianhao Zhang

Peter Chen
Headquarters|

Berkeley, CA

Website| covariant.ai

Covariant is an American industrial robotics company currently headquartered in Berkeley, CA. The company was founded in 2017 by researchers from UC Berkeley and OpenAI. [1] It builds software for pick-and-place robotics in highly-automated warehouses.

Covariant has raised 67 million dollars from a combination of venture capitalists and technology experts like Index Ventures, Lux Capital, Jeff Dean, Geoffrey Hinton, Yann LeCun, and Fei-Fei Li. [2][3] In early 2020, Covariant announced partnerships with industrial robot companies ABB and Knapp AG.[4]

## Background

Covariant was founded in 2017 by former researchers from AI Labs at UC Berkeley and OpenAI. It came out of stealth in January 2020, announcing its Knapp partnership and an Obeta warehouse robotics deployment. [5]

Covariant's initial flagship product, the pick-it-easy robot in partnership with Knapp, learned to pick items from warehouse boxes from a digital simulation. The system can reportedly pick and sort over 10,000 items with 99% accuracy. [6]

In 2020, Covariant won ABB's robot contest, edging out 20 competitors in a race to achieve human-level performance to pick and place random items.[7]

## Technology

Covariant's mission is to build a universal AI. The company builds what it calls the "Covariant Brain," an AI-powered software layer for industrial robots. [8] The product leverages recent advances in machine learning, like reinforcement learning and convolutional neural networks, to automate warehouse operations. Covariant's robots can handle complex SKU types, such as "polybags, banded-apparel, transparent objects and blister packs". [9]

The system can actively improve its picking abilities by learning from past experience. The deployed robots can learn from other robots over time.

## References

1. ↑ "Industrial robotics giant teams up with a rising A.I. startup" (in en). https://fortune.com/2020/02/25/industrial-robotics-ai-covariant/.
2. ↑ Smith, Jennifer (2020-05-06). "Logistics AI Startup Covariant Reaps $40 Million in Funding Round" (in en-US). Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. https://www.wsj.com/articles/logistics-ai-startup-covariant-reaps-40-million-in-funding-round-11588719951.
3. ↑ "About us | Covariant". https://covariant.ai/about-us/.
4. ↑ "Industrial robotics giant teams up with a rising A.I. startup" (in en). https://fortune.com/2020/02/25/industrial-robotics-ai-covariant/.
5. ↑ Covariant. "Covariant launches from stealth to bring universal AI to robots" (in en). https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/covariant-launches-from-stealth-to-bring-universal-ai-to-robots-300995185.html.
6. ↑ Satariano, Adam; Metz, Cade (2020-01-29). "A Warehouse Robot Learns to Sort Out the Tricky Stuff" (in en-US). The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/29/technology/warehouse-robot.html.
7. ↑ "Error: no `|title=` specified when using {{Cite web}}". https://www.controldesign.com/industrynews/2020/abb-partners-with-covariant-for-integrated-ai-robotic-solutions/.Error:+no+`|title=`+specified when+using+{{[[Template:Cite+web|Cite+web]]}}&rft.atitle=&rft_id=https://www.controldesign.com/industrynews/2020/abb-partners-with-covariant-for-integrated-ai-robotic-solutions/&rfr_id=info:sid/en.wikibooks.org:Company:Covariant_(industrial_robot)">
8. ↑ "I think … therefore I might be a material handling robot: interview with Ted Stinson" (in en). https://www.dcvelocity.com/articles/46844-i-think-therefore-i-might-be-a-material-handling-robot-interview-with-ted-stinson.
9. ↑ Synced (2020-06-16). "AI Startup Covariant.ai Building ‘Universal AI for Robots’ | Synced" (in en-US). https://syncedreview.com/2020/06/16/ai-startup-covariant-ai-building-universal-ai-for-robots/.

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