FROM SCIENTIFIC FOUNDERS

01 STORY UTEC MUJIN

Innovating the minds of industrial robots

UTEC Partner MUJIN, Inc. CTO

PROLOGUE

Artificial Intelligence (AI) beating the world’s best Go player, AI drawing the newest art piece of a long deceased painter by learning the characteristics of their painting, A novel written by AI being selected for a literature award application… In recent years, the development of artificial intelligence and robot technology has led the human society into an era of automation. The robot venture MUJIN’s challenge is to make industrial robots “intelligent”, to give the robots “intelligence” like humans to think and operate on their own. How does MUJIN envision its technology will change industrial robots? And how would this change what labour means for humankind? We asked the Chief Technical Officer & co-founder of MUJIN, and inventor of the open source robot movement planning software “OpenRAVAE” Mr. Rosen Diankov and UTEC Partner Mr. Ted Yamamoto.

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SECTION01 : Establishment of a method to make robots “intelligent”

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Establishment of a method to make robots “intelligent”

Conventional industrial robots are able to perform movements and tasks that they are “taught”, and in performing these tasks the robots are faster and more accurate than humans. This is clear when one goes to a modern manufacturing facility. However, these robots cannot perform tasks that they weren’t taught. Giving a robot an ability to see with its own eyes and think about its actions by its own thoughts were long thought to be very difficult. MUJIN’S core technology is “motion planning” which allows for the robot to function by itself without the need of“teaching”. It gives industrial robots the ability to think and react on its own to the real world. MUJIN is truly trying to give robots “intelligence”.

Rosen:
Conventional industrial robots have low scalability because of their function and their need to be specifically taught. For example, if one can teach the robot and make it able to move in one system, this can be replicated. It may seem that this process is therefore scalable. However the problem arises when there are changes to the system. For example if the container size of the manufacturing line changes, the program has to change as well. One would have to then spend time to re-set up the robot program.

The necessity to teach robots has been a problem for industrial robots for many years. There is a need to spend lots of time to program an operation to the robot at the level of each joint movement. Furthermore, most of this programming was done by experienced operators.

Rosen:
If one uses MUJIN’s robot control technology, they can automate this teaching process. There is no need to spend time in order to re-set up manually. Through MUJIN’s technology, we can significantly improve the scalability of industrial robots.

MUJIN's greatest strength lies in the development of controllers, which are the brains of robots: the Next-generation intelligent robot controller or the "MUJIN controller". Combining the world's highest quality robot motion planning technology, advanced parallel distributed processing, and 3D recognition technology, it is the only versatile control device in the world, applicable regardless of the model, number of axes, and mechanical structure of the robots. The biggest feature of the MUJIN controller is that it can be connected to any robot (*) and can automatically set the optimum movement without teaching. Robots will have human-like intelligence that can think and see with their own eyes and autonomously change their behavior. What made this possible was the computational algorithm that Rosen developed when he received his PhD from Carnegie Mellon University which allows for a quick generation of optimal robot motion programs. Mr. Rosen studied under Mr. Takeo Kanade, an authority on robotics in image recognition technology at Carnegie Mellon University, and further improved the degree of completion of his work through his postdoctoral research at the University of Tokyo JSK.
*All robots which have a servo amplifier that can connect to the Ethernet or EtherCAT

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Liberating humanity from labour

MUJIN’s name comes from the Japanese word “mujin” which means “unmanned” and “inexhaustible”. By making robots more "intelligent" and easier to use, MUJIN have expanded the range of applications for robots and unmanned simple labor at manufacturing sites. MUJIN will expand the time for human beings to engage in more advanced intellectual activities.

Anyone can instantly understand MUJIN's vision by seeing the movement of MUJIN's world's first industrial robot "Pick Worker" that generates completely teachless autonomous movement.

Rosen:
Currently, we are focusing on picking robots (robots that pinch small parts and objects). Picking is a task that any of us humans can do. However, programming picking tasks on a computer is very complicated. I have been studying picking robots for 11 years. I've been studying this since my time at Carnegie Mellon University surrounded by very talented students, till this day. There are really new discoveries every week. Picking work may seem trivial, but we are finding a way to do it perfectly with robots and I believe this achievement will make a great contribution to the world's industries. The next target would be robots that perform assembly work. Eventually, the goal is to automate everything in the manufacturing plant. There is still a long way to go, but we will start by mastering the picking task.

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Co-founding with a strong vision

MUJIN was co-founded in 2011 by Rosen and CEO Kazuyuki Takino. Rosen and Mr. Takino first met in 2009. At that time, Mr. Rosen was also thinking about starting a business while working for "Willow Garage", which is known as the developer of ROS (Robot Operating System). Mr. Rosen and Mr. Takino met at the "2009 International Robot Exhibition (iREX 2009)", they spoke for 5 minutes and Mr. Rosen says he instantly and instinctively felt that "This is the man I was looking for."

Rosen:
I was thinking of starting a business, but I didn't have the know-how on sales marketing or financing. Besides, I have to develop the best robot in the world. I needed a partner to start a business. When I met Kazuyuki, he was working as a corporate sales person at the Japanese subsidiary of Israel's second largest cutting tool maker in the world, Iskar. He wasn't a robot expert, but he definitely was a business expert. He understood the state-of-the-art robot technology and its value, and knew what the companies that would become MUJIN's customers in the future were looking for. I wasn't looking for someone to sell what I produced cheaply, but for someone who would sell it for the highest possible price. This is because if high profits are obtained, they can be sent to research and development to produce even higher levels of technology. It took me two years to persuade him. And he was definitely the one I was looking for.

In 2012, Rosen and Takino, who co-founded MUJIN in 2011, met Tetsuya Yamamoto of UTEC through a relationship with the University of Tokyo in the process of fund raising. Mr. Yamamoto also shared the vision of MUJIN's next-generation industrial robots, and invested in the company after formulating a business plan together.

Yamamoto:
We first met in March 2012. At that time, I was looking for business opportunities related to robots in Japan, and I was looking at various related elemental technologies at the University of Tokyo and other places. For example, there was a very good sensor technology. They had excellent technical performance, but there was not much that could be scaled as a venture company in terms of business. As I continued to look for a good business concept in this field, I met MUJIN. I felt that MUJIN's motion generation technology is the core technology for the intelligentization of next-generation industrial robots. My vision was also in line with MUJIN's business concept and vision of launching industrial robot applications in collaboration with Japanese industrial robot manufacturers. In 2012, no one had envisioned a venture that would combine industrial robots with artificial intelligence to make them intelligent. However, at that time, I thought that the source of value in robots would shift to software and motion planning. That is why UTEC decided to invest in MUJIN. And now I think the decision was correct. Now everyone is discussing the relationship between industrial robots and AI.

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FINAL SECTION

FINAL SECTION

Entrepreneurship is “all or nothing”

MUJIN has team members from various countries such as the United States, China, and Ukraine. We have invited a large number of employees from domestic and overseas universities such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Stanford University through a highly valued internship system. The world's most advanced AI and robotics brains are gathered together here. Based on their work, we have been delivering our products to various major manufacturers such as Nissan Motor, Honda, Canon, etc., won the Japan Robot Award in October 2016, and mentioned at the CEO meeting when Prime Minister Abe visited the United States in September 2017. We are also looking at going public in the near future.

Yamamoto:
Picking robots is just the beginning for MUJIN, and their vision is 30 years ahead. With their strong vision, MUJIN visits universities and research institutes in Japan and overseas, and attracts a large number of talented people. This is very important as an entrepreneur. Competent people only come to companies that have a visionary that is more capable than themselves.
Rosen:
Thank you. But I think Ted (Yamamoto) is the true visionary. Ted and UTEC have given us a chance, as many investors only consider a short-term payback of a few years. They invested not only in the investment value of our company, that is, indicators such as fluctuations in market capitalization, but also in the long-term impact on society. I really appreciate it from the bottom of my heart. And we weren't always doing well either. Sometimes we were in very difficult situations. Ted helped us and guided us in the right direction, even in situations where no one knew the right answer.
Yamamoto:
Yamamoto: We at UTEC are currently renewing that vision. And we have come to think that our job is to face the challenges of humankind. We're not entrepreneurs, but we want to bring together capital, talent, knowledge, and the power of science and technology to help entrepreneurs solve the challenges that humanity faces.

At the end of the conversation, Mr. Rosen gave a message to researchers, engineers, and programmers who are aiming to start a business. Mr. Rosen's message was that "entrepreneurship is all or nothing”

Rosen:
I often meet people who want to start a business. They are very smart, but hesitate to take the last step. In other words, they don't go as far as taking risks. A friend of mine is a very talented roboticist. He continues to say he wants to start a business, but he can't leave the college job because of his excellence. He always says, "He wants to start a company while working in college." But if you ask me, that day will never come. I want to say to all those who have the ambition to start a business and do something that surprises people all over the world: entrepreneurship is all or nothing, and it is not something that can be done as a side business. There is no such thing as a "half-only" commitment to achieve great results. Once you start a business, entrepreneurs should not be afraid to devote all their lives to the business, it is really about dedicating one’s everything.