[00:00:00] Speaker A: The railway industry has like a 99%, some manual processes, and it's outside, but it's always long range. So we're working with them a lot to bring some automated process for them, you know, in an industry that wasn't automated for the last 100 years, you.
[00:00:23] Speaker B: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the robot industry podcast. My name is Jim Barretta, and our guest for this edition of the podcast is Frederick Vaccine. He is the founder and visionary behind rbot Nine, a company at the forefront of changing the rules for the long range robotics landscape. Rbot Nine is a manufacturer of suspended cable robots operating with a unique and patented formula, able to operate efficiently in oversized environments. In just two years, under Frederick's leadership, Rbot Nine transformed into a six figure company, attracting top talent and forward thinking engineers. Welcome to the podcast, Frederick.
[00:01:03] Speaker A: Thanks for the invitation, Jim. It's a pleasure to be here.
[00:01:06] Speaker B: And rbot nine is spelled rboT, and then the number nine, correct?
[00:01:11] Speaker A: Exactly, yeah.
[00:01:12] Speaker B: Frederick, how did you get started?
[00:01:14] Speaker A: Well, I'm passionate in robotics from whence I was at high school. And I remember I was looking, searching for a university program so that I could learn robotics, and at that time, in the 90s, didn't exist. So finally, I ended up in electrical engineering, where for robotics, it is in the middle. It is between software and mechanics. So this is how I choose to go in engineering and electrical. But my first goal was to be a robotician for cable robotics itself. That really started when I paid a visit that my brother has a company, it's a metal fabrication company. He had problems hiring some quality employees, and his shop workshop was a mess with all that metal parts everywhere, with heavy duty tools everywhere. We were looking to help the throughput of his business with the new Lincoln robotic arms, which is a robotic arm with a Lincoln Welder on it. But it had so short range of operation, it wasn't not really built for the type of product he was building. So we tried to put a little bit more of range into that robotic, little robotic arm. And the only place that was left in this shop was the ceiling. So give me ideas on using that space and having that robot coming from the ceiling and to do the operations that he was looking for and giving it a little bit more range. But at that time, only gantries were existing, so just the cost of it and the restructuring of the whole workshop was just not doable. So this is when I really imagined just to suspend it with cables. And this is where I tried to figure out a way of stabilizing a robotic arm upside down, coming from the ceiling, suspended from the ceiling with cables. And so, yeah, that's mainly it.
[00:03:29] Speaker B: That's very exciting. And RoCap is the brand name for your robot?
[00:03:33] Speaker A: Exactly. So RoCap stands for robotic cable platform.
[00:03:37] Speaker B: And Quebec's kind of a hotspot for robots and automation. And how important is it that you're located in Montreal? That is the Saint Hubert.
[00:03:45] Speaker A: Montreal today is becoming a robotic hotspot. Maybe a little bit less like five years ago, but still.
What we see here in Montreal is the attitude and mentality of people that are really into trying stuff into innovation. They're actively seeking out to be involved in innovation. So it's a really nice ecosystem. I think it's more people that brings that facility, in a way here. Innovation is also quite well supported by key players. There's a lot of institution, some labs, and when I exposed my, it was in 2019 when I really started exposing the concept of the roadcap. I was at my third version in my basement, but now it was the time for me to expose myself.
I had a really good reception.
It took me like ten minutes to convince to be incubated.
Yes, I think that we are at the right place for innovation.
[00:04:55] Speaker B: And are you still in the basement?
[00:04:57] Speaker A: No.
Now the basement is really used as a basement, but it wasn't like that before.
[00:05:04] Speaker B: I bet your kids are happy about that.
[00:05:06] Speaker A: No, not really. They really appreciated to be next to the robots and all the equipment I had around and looking at something that was quite different.
[00:05:19] Speaker B: And who are kind of your bullseye customers and your applications?
[00:05:24] Speaker A: Well, first of all, the bullseye customers in tenure would be everybody that would require the automation for long range processes.
We want to promote towards the most kind of sectors that we can be. But there's the cable robot, but there's the full application integration, and that's time too. So we need to focus on three sectors that we have in our hands right now. So I would like separate them this way. First of all, there is the large object handling. So just bringing some doors, some propane tanks, some windows, some wood structure from one place to the other inside a manufacturer. There's a lot of application for that out there. It's all done by humans today. Maybe humans would lift, but still automating, that is not a possibility today. The second one would be large scale inspection. So the business case of the rowcap itself from the start, was related to a skin mapping of an airplane, a full skin mapping. So coming from the ceiling with cameras, high definition cameras, or specific inspection tools, being able to just automate the full capture of the skin of an airplane. That was our first goal. But still we can go a little bit further into that later on the third one, they came and see us and say, we would like RBAC nine to be involved in our automation innovations. It is the railway industry. And so the railway industry has like a 99%, some manual processes and it's outside, but it's always long range, so putting some gantries everywhere, it would not be profitable. So I think they really like our technology and we're working with them a lot to bring some automated process for them in an industry that wasn't automated for the last 100 years. So yeah, that's mainly it. But these three sectors that we have identified, they have common pain points.
They all struggle for their diminishing workforce. It's really hard to hire because it's really simple jobs and people are becoming more and more specialized and there's less and less worker. Also there's Azure. This working condition in these areas, it can be heavy, you can have problems with your health, you're doing repeatedly your function. So, no, it's really important for companies today to have some safe work environments.
And also there are some difficulties of adopting some the existing automated solutions to support their needs in automation. So they're not able to get to a positive ROI.
[00:08:46] Speaker B: You mentioned about an end effector being a camera. What other end of arm tools are you putting on the end of your.
[00:08:52] Speaker A: Robot roll cap always has been taught to support a little robotic arm. We're not talking about really small ones, we're just talking about the ones that have around 1 meter of reach, for example, or maybe a little bit more. So it has been designed to support a robotic arm and also its controller. So you don't want the controller to be 30 meters away, you want it on the spot.
So first of all, we would think of a robotic arm to be upside down under the row cap. But now the robotic arm is not an in effector, it's as generic as the row cap itself.
[00:09:35] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:09:35] Speaker A: So we thought, and well, we're developing right now some solutions with some NDT companies for having at the end of that robotic arm, NDT inspection system. So we're talking about many types of them. There's some infrared inspections, there's some ultrasound inspections, eddy current probes, and eventually, and it's in discussions right now, even going towards x rays. So that's the kind of application we could do. That's the kind of n effector that could go at the end of the robotic arm that is under the got.
[00:10:21] Speaker B: You've got all the tech, right? Infrared and ultraviolet. And, Eddie, that's very, very cool.
[00:10:26] Speaker A: Yeah. But we're not specialists in NDT, but we're partners with companies that are specialists in NDT integration. And so they have all these toys, and they're bringing them in so that we can join them with our robot, with a robotic arm, and make a full automated application. Today, the only way we can do these kinds of tests of NDT, it is with handheld systems, and it's a human that needs to go towards a plane with a scissor lift or something like that. Yeah. So that's one of it. So we talked about the inspection or skin mapping, but also for large object displacement.
It's really simple. You just need an array of suction cups, and you put it under the row cap. And now you can bring a door over 30 meters to the pallet, or you can palletize and do some order preparation at the same time. So these are for real, the two ones that we're developing right now, and that we see much potential. A lot of people are really interested into that.
And, well, there is the end effectors that are completely custom for the worldway industry, but that. I cannot talk more about that.
[00:12:02] Speaker B: Yes, of course. Because you probably sign nondisclosure agreements all the time.
[00:12:06] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:12:07] Speaker B: And how are you finding sales? You probably have a lot of people in word of mouth because this is a very unique position that you're in.
[00:12:14] Speaker A: Yes.
Nobody knows that a cable robot would be suiting their needs over automation. And even more, there's not a lot of people out there that really knows that cable robots exist. Okay, well, everybody knows that the sky cam exists in the football fields, where you have the suspended cameras in the middle, but not the one from Rbat nine, the rowcap, which is capable of doing some industrial applications. So we need to introduce our disruptive technology. We need to show that we're changing the rules. So we need to explain. But once it is explained, now you see all the imaginations of our potential customers bringing in some new applications, and they say, okay, we could do that, and that, and that. And that's really promising. Once people understand what we're doing now, it's potential projects for the next two years.
[00:13:19] Speaker B: And what is the payload that you can take on? Or do you have kind of a sweet spot?
[00:13:25] Speaker A: We're cable robot specialist. We have the row cap itself. The row cap itself is a product. It is capable of supporting more than 100 kilos and bringing it over more than 150ft per 150ft per 50ft of high. So considering that it's a really long range that we're capable of and supporting 100 kilos with a five millimeter repeatability over all of that range. So that's our technology. That's why we say that we're disruptive in a way.
[00:14:05] Speaker B: That's great. And could you tell us a little bit about some of your partners? Because you must use systems integrators to install. Do you or do you just have a bunch of partners?
[00:14:13] Speaker A: For now, there are some system integrators that are interested in our technology, but we are ourselves also system integrator. So mainly all of our projects that we have today, we are the project integrator at the same time. So yes, there are some interested, but it's like everything. They want to see a little bit more adoption, even if there's already before taking the risk, we could say with a new technology that it's understandable. So we understand also that for our customers that really need our technology, because they have major pain points, but we need to be also the system integrators.
[00:14:57] Speaker B: And safety is so important in robotics and automation today. And how do you ensure your worker safety?
[00:15:02] Speaker A: Yeah, safety is more at the project integration level. Okay. The row cap itself has this feature, but they need to be used depending on the situation. So, first of all, we have twelve cables on our row cap. There are twelve cables are winded with twelve motors, but they also have twelve brakes. And our twelve brakes are independent circuitry, where you can cut off all the brakes while the robot is moving in. So at the end, you can put these brake over a security Plc that him has been integrated with the correct sensors depending on the situation to make it stop. So if there's no power, the robot enables its brakes and automatically doesn't even move, doesn't even lost its position, and it becomes a chandelier. This is our way of having a really basic security. At the end, it depends on customer. Do we need some lidars and have a security that would look like an agv, or do we just need to close down the area in a certain way? People won't go under while it's performing some palletization or some scanning. So it depends. It's customer driven at that point.
[00:16:25] Speaker B: And where do you see the future for Rbot nine and for RoCap?
[00:16:29] Speaker A: Yes, a lot of things. Of course, I see big. Still, we need to take all of this step by step. But in five years, I consider that the world, well, any kind of robotic integrator would be considering a cable robot for a long range robotic project. So I hope in five years will already be there. And for our but nine, I hope that we'll have the road cap, maybe we'll have the mini road cap and the mega road cap, just examples like that. And also have more pattern patterns that we're working on right now.
[00:17:09] Speaker B: Well, that's very exciting. And did we forget to talk about anything?
[00:17:13] Speaker A: Do you think that the audience knows correctly what's a cable robot? Because that's always the thing that we're tackling with.
[00:17:19] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that people will kind of understand that a cable robot is supported by cables and the end effector is quite.
The motors are all at the top, right? So the mass is fairly low at the bottom, correct?
[00:17:33] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, we can compare ourselves as the spider cam or the sky cam, the ones that we see in stadiums. We have seen also some in the Olympics. So these are four cable robots.
We are different in a way in our approach, but with our twelve cables, we're able to support also rotations, and that's the big difference. So when you see the camera in the stadium, it is stabilized by a separate stabilization system, gyroscopes, gimbal, and in our case, it is the cables that are stabilizing the middle. And so we're able to keep in all time a 0.1 degree coplanearity with the floor. And so we're really aiming industrial purpose. We're not going into stadiums with the Rocat. We want to move stuff around, we want to be really precise over operations, we want to have safe areas for the workers, so do the job at their place. But there's so much people missing. We're pretty sure every industry will figure out what to do with that human that will not be at the end in the unsecured environment. So we want to go there.
So we leave the stadium to the sky cam and the spider cam.
[00:19:04] Speaker B: Absolutely. And if people want to find out more about you or want to get a hold of you, what can they do?
[00:19:10] Speaker A: Oh, it's easy.
On LinkedIn. Can reach me Frederick Vashon. And we have also our page on LinkedIn, the rbot nine page, but we also have our website, so a lot of information on the website.
There's our contact also there information. And if you come by by Montreal and you want to see a live demonstration of our Roca, it will be a pleasure and show you our environment. We're in airplane anguard, so it's really fun to see.
[00:19:44] Speaker B: Well, thank you very much for coming on today, and I'll put some of that information in our show notes as well.
[00:19:49] Speaker A: It was a pleasure to be there.
[00:19:51] Speaker B: Our sponsor for this episode is Earhart Automation Systems. Earhart builds and commissions turnkey solutions for their worldwide clients with over 80 years of precision manufacturing. They understand the complex world of robotics, automated manufacturing, and project management, delivering world class custom automation on time and on budget. Contact one of their sales engineers to see what airheart can build for you, and you can send them an email anytime at
[email protected] and Earhart is spelled Ehrhardt, and I'd like to acknowledge j three, the association for Advancing Automation. They are the leading automation trade association for robotics, vision and imaging, motion control and motors, and the industrial artificial intelligence technologies. Visit automate.org to learn more. And if you'd like to get in touch with us at the robot industry podcast, you can find me Jim Barretta on LinkedIn. Today's podcast was produced by customer Attraction Industrial Marketing, and I'd like to recognize Chris Gray for the music, Jeffrey Bremder for audio production, my business partner Janet and our sponsor, Earhart automation systems.
