Hitch: No, itвЂ™s not a surveillance robot. Skaff: It navigates by LIDAR and has 15 2D cameras and 6 3D cameras.ДЄs you scan the aisles, i s your robot storing images of people shopping? Me interviewing a speechless robot Martin Hitch We need it to stay focused and not get distracted by chatting with customers. Hitch: Well, our robot has a very important job to do - move around the store, capture data and images of shelf items, process it to figure out whatвЂ™s on the shelf, and transmit it to their human counterparts. For example, we scan Walmart three times a day and that data is processed in 15 minutes or less on the robot, then transmitted to handheld devices in the store so action can be taken immediately. Hitch: We deploy the robot as a service and structure a data plan around what the retailer needs, depending on the tasks theyвЂ™re trying to accomplish in the store, and how frequent and fast they need data captured and analyzed. At the end of the day your robot is only as smart as your team. He is now Bossa NovaвЂ™s Chief AI Scientist and heads up the lab we fund on campus which is staffed with 25 of best in class AI scientists. One of its founders, Professor Marios Savvides, is world-renowned for his work in deep learning, face biometrics, and object recognition, and recently spoke at Davos World Economic Forum. Then last year, we acquired HawXeye, a CMU spinoff. Hitch: Sarjoun started Bossa Nova while attending CMU. WhatвЂ™s your relationship with Carnegie Melon? WeвЂ™ve now been in the business longer than anyone else. We realized it would be perfect for front-of-store operations where there was zero automation and took it to our retail partners and said, we have a physical robot platform that can operate safely around customers while scanning your shelves and can solve your out-of-stocks problem real-time. So in 2012, we began experimenting with uses for the platform and developed an autonomous ballbot using technology licensed from Carnegie Mellon that could move safely around adults. Ultimately, we got squeezed out of the market by Skylanders, but found ourselves with this fantastic platform we had built for physical robots who could change capabilities in an online world. Hitch: Initially we tried to build a business around interactive kids toys in the gaming space but couldnвЂ™t make any money it because the price point was too low. The company started as a maker of tiny toy robots and then pivoted to commercial service robots. It also means вЂњnew trendвЂќ - we see ourselves as pioneers. I went there when I was younger and loved the culture. Where does the name Bossa Nova come from? What follows is an edited transcript of our discussion: I had a chance to catch up with Sarjoun Skaff, Co-Founder and CTO, and Martin Hitch, CBO of Bossa Nova Robotics, to discuss how theyвЂ™re leveraging AI, machine learning, computer vision and data analytics to help grocers achieve retail efficiency.

Robots 2005 transcript