The Revolution Begins

CORVALLIS, Oregon—2007 July 5th—Revolution Robotics is officially established as a corporation. Founded in 2007 by a team of engineers, the company is pursuing it’s vision of transforming the development process of robotic devices. The company has dedicated itself to developing solutions for both hardware devices and robotic platforms with a focus on development tools and technologies for rapid prototyping.

Prior to the establishment of Revolution Robotics, the team worked together at Oregon State University developing robotic systems. In 2005, during the time at Oregon State, the group took on the challenge of developing a platform for autonomous robotics. Its initial goal was to allow for the creation of autonomous aerial and ground mobile robots for use as research platforms. To keep the project manageable, the goal was to create a reconfigurable control system which could be transferred between various platforms. Using these requirements as its starting point, the team set out to prototype their initial robotics development system.

By 2006 the project quickly evolved to include a much broader set of goals including extending support for a diverse range of sensory devices and other key subsystems found in typical mobile robotic applications. In early 2007 the group delivered the first iteration of its robotic development platform; a universal control system specifically designed for the application of robotics. Armed with this development tool, the engineers were able to quickly prototype and demonstrate a variety of robotic systems. A solar sun tracking device, on-road and off-road remote operated vehicles, and a self balancing robot were among the numerous devices developed with the initial system; all of devices were assembled in a matter of days! This dramatic reduction in development time validated the viability of this system.

The key to the successful platform relied on the reliance on computer systems to provide a software interface to various electronic components. By moving the complexities from hardware to software, the development platform was able to leverage the tremendous functionality of modern programming languages. These tools brought a new level of functionality and speed to the development cycle of robotic system. Further more, the team demonstrated the system’s capabilities to immediately interact with the data from various sensors. This allowed control systems to be tested and built both quickly and interactively by manipulating data in real-time.

Revolution Robotics was formed with the goal of bringing this kind of tool to the commercial market. The idea of revolutionizing the design process of robotic systems is at the core of Revolution Robotics and they are currently working closely with numerous engineering teams to test and deploy the latest development systems. Solutions for robotic systems will be commercially available soon.

Press Contact:

Revolution Robotics
Aaron Moore
(541) 357–REVO
press@revoinc.com