News

Indian robotics is shackled by high duties. The government must free it

Source: mint, December 6, 2023 [1]
India's quest to lead in robotics manufacturing faces a duty dilemma. While the nation dreams big with its National Strategy on Robotics, high import duties hinder the manufacturer’s ability to scale up production and export.

A venture capitalist's perspective on robotics

Source: The Robot Report, December 11, 2023 [2]
The robotics space changes rapidly, with constantly rotating “hot sectors,” tweaks to business models, and shifting investment and exit dynamics. To better understand the industry landscape, F-Prime Capital recently completed a comprehensive analysis of more than 1,250 robotics companies that raised funding over the past five years.

NVIDIA Isaac Sim on AWS to ease robotics development

Source: The Robot Report, December 12, 2023 [3]
NVIDIA has announced that its GPUs will be integrated into AWS to improve the Isaac simulator, offering a 2x performance boost. The new Amazon Machine Images (AMIs) on the NVIDIA L40S will enable roboticists to run Isaac Sim workloads, enabling real-time inferencing and fine-tuning of large language models.

Intel stands by record semiconductor investment despite German budget problems

Source: EURACTIV, December 5, 2023 [4]
Intel is sticking to its plans to build a €30 billion chip factory in Germany, despite some uncertainty over state subsidies for the project after the Constitutional Court ‘threw a spanner in the works’ of the government’s budget plans.

GPU market recovers - shipments up 37.4% in Q3 2023, with AMD seeing the biggest increase

Source: TweakTown, December 5, 2023 [5]
A new report shows that the GPU market is bouncing back in a big way, with shipments way up for AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA in Q3 2023.

EFPGA gives you FPGA speed and density at much less cost and power

Source: Semiconductor Engineering, December 7, 2023 [6]
FPGAs offer flexibility and quick market time, making them useful in various systems. As volumes grow, embedded FPGAs can be integrated to adapt to changing standards, improve algorithms, and optimize customer optimizations for SoC designers.

AI accelerator architectures poised for big changes

Source: Semiconductor Engineering, December 4, 2023 [7]
Design teams are racing to boost speed and energy efficiency of AI as it begins shifting toward the edge.

Unveiling the computing power: Apple’s M2 Max GPU against Nvidia’s titans

Source: Medium, December 12, 2023 [8]
Apple's M1 chip revolutionized high-end desktops with impressive performance and energy efficiency. The M2 Pro and M2 Max chips, particularly the M2 Max with 30 GPU cores, are expected to push boundaries further.

Papers

Vision-based robotics using open FPGAs

Source: Science Direct, November 14, 2023 [9]
Robotics offers practical applications in manufacturing, autonomous driving, and logistics. FPGAs are suitable computing substrates for robots due to their fast response time, low power consumption, parallelism, and flexibility. However, proprietary tools and hardware devices have fragmented the FPGA market. Open-source toolchains are emerging, offering a library of Verilog modules for vision-based robots. Three applications with real robots and open FPGAs have been developed for experimental validation. This opens up an attractive alternative to proprietary tools and FPGAs.

Multi-LiDAR localization and mapping pipeline for urban autonomous driving

Source: arXiv, November 3, 2023 [10]
A novel sensor fusion-based pipeline for offline and online localization of autonomous vehicles uses four LiDAR sensors and KISS-ICP mapping algorithms. The pipeline is integrated into the ROS 2 Autoware software stack, outperforming state-of-the-art approaches for real-world autonomous driving applications and research vehicles.

Previous Hardware Acceleration in Robotics Newsletters

Past ROS 2 Hardware Acceleration Working Group meetings

  1. Kaur, S., & Vikhe, G. (2023, December 6). Indian robotics is shackled by high duties. The government must free it. mint. https://www.livemint.com/opinion/first-person/government-must-slash-duties-and-taxes-to-make-indian-robotics-competitive-11701859794692.html ↩︎

  2. Aggarwal, S. (2023, December 11). A venture capitalist's perspective on robotics. The Robot Report. https://www.therobotreport.com/venture-capitalist-perspective-on-robotics/ ↩︎

  3. The Robot Report Staff. (2023, December 12). NVIDIA Isaac Sim on AWS to ease robotics development. The Robot Report. https://www.therobotreport.com/nvidia-isaac-sim-on-aws-to-ease-robotics-development/ ↩︎

  4. Alipour, N. (2023, December 5). Intel stands by record semiconductor investment despite German budget problems. EURACTIV. https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/intel-stands-by-record-semiconductor-investment-despite-german-budget-problems/ ↩︎

  5. Andreadis, K. (2023, December 5). GPU market recovers - shipments up 37.4% in Q3 2023, with AMD seeing the biggest increase. TweakTown. https://www.tweaktown.com/news/94753/gpu-market-recovers-shipments-up-37-4-in-q3-2023-with-amd-seeing-the-biggest-increase/index.html ↩︎

  6. Tate, G. (2023, December 7). EFPGA gives you FPGA speed and density at much less cost and power. Semiconductor Engineering. https://semiengineering.com/efpga-gives-you-fpga-speed-and-density-at-much-less-cost-and-power/ ↩︎

  7. Mutschler, A. (2023, December 4). AI accelerator architectures poised for big changes. Semiconductor Engineering. https://semiengineering.com/ai-accelerator-architectures-poised-for-big-changes/?cmid=0f756a92-98dd-4c7e-b971-343c5339a553 ↩︎

  8. Harber, H. (2023, December 12). Unveiling the computing power: Apple’s M2 Max GPU against Nvidia’s titans. Medium. https://medium.com/@hyman.harber/unveiling-the-computing-power-apples-m2-max-gpu-against-nvidia-s-titans-ffb39e4408cb ↩︎

  9. Machado, F., Nieto, R., Fernández-Conde, J., Lobato, D., & Cañas, J. M. (2023, November 14). Vision-based robotics using open FPGAs. Science Direct. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0141933123002193 ↩︎

  10. Sauerbeck, F., Kulmer, D., Pielmeier, M., Leitenstern, M., Weib, C., & Betz, J. (2023, November 3). Multi-LiDAR localization and mapping pipeline for urban autonomous driving. arXiv. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2311.01823.pdf ↩︎