Israel Innovation Authority Approves $17M For Robotics, Autonomous Vehicle Fleets

The Israel Innovation Authority announced this week an approved budget of NIS 57 million ($17.8 million) for two MAGNET consortiums tasked with developing technologies for human-robot interaction (HRI) and advancing command and control capabilities of autonomous vehicle fleets. 

The MAGNET Consortium incentive program is operated by the Innovation Authority’s Technology Infrastructure division. It distributes grants to groups of industrial companies and research institutions working together to develop R&D infrastructure technologies that are likely to yield significant financial impacts for the Israeli economy. 

The goal of the newly launched HRI Consortium is to integrate social capacities into robotics systems, generating a greater range of tasks and interactions with different users in a variety of operational environments. Partner companies will then have the option to implement the HRI technologies in their own robotic systems to boost their competitive status in the global market. 

The Israeli companies that form the HRI Consortium are Cogniteam, Intuition Robotics, ReWalk, Robotican, Deep Learning Robotics (DLR), Seamless Vision, and Elbit Systems C4IR and Cyber. The Consortium also includes researchers from Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Bar Ilan University, Tel Aviv University, and the Reichman University. The US-based National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Samsung’s Israeli research center have expressed interest in joining. https://nocamels.com/2022/03/skyline-robotics-window-washing/

“The Innovation Authority places great importance on promoting the robotics field in Israel,” said Dror Bin, CEO of Israel Innovation Authority. “Development and enhancement of capabilities in robotics has the potential to provide companies with a considerable competitive advantage in sales of advanced robotics systems in the global market. This is true when it comes to the production of complete systems as well as with important components in third-party manufactured systems.”

The Andromeda Consortium is developing efficient and financially sound ways to correct errors and improve capacities pertaining to communication, bandwidth, cybersecurity, and human-machine interface throughout remote command and control centers. 

The Israeli companies that form the Andromeda Consortium are DriveU, Mprest, Cognata, R-GO, Elbit Systems C4IR and Cyber and Elbit Aerospace Division. Ayalon Highways Ltd. and a number of international car manufacturers are participating in this consortium as observers.

“The vision of autonomous vehicles is slowly becoming a reality,” said Dr. Aviv Zeevi, VP of the Israel Innovation Authority’s Technology Infrastructure Division. “The products of these consortiums will help generate competitive solutions and bring them to market. We will likely see ways to incorporate various combinations in systems that are not necessarily part of the classic autonomous vehicle market – for example, in the command and control of a fleet of drones, delivery robots, farming tools, and more. I believe the timing of the Andromeda consortium is highly apt and will enable its partners to fully cultivate advanced technologies for a very large future market.”