The Pransky interview: Dr Hod Lipson, Professor at Columbia University; Robotics, AI, Digital Design and Manufacturing Innovator and Entrepreneur

Purpose This paper is a “Q&A interview” conducted by Joanne Pransky of Industrial Robot Journal as a method to impart the combined technological, business and personal experience of a prominent, robotic industry PhD and innovator regarding his personal journey and the commercialization and challenges of bringing a technological invention to market. This paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach The interviewee is Dr Hod Lipson, James and Sally Scapa Professor of Innovation of Mechanical Engineering and Data Science at Columbia University. Lipson’s bio-inspired research led him to co-found four companies. In this interview, Dr Lipson shares some of his personal and business experiences of working in academia and industry. Findings Dr Lipson received his BSc in Mechanical Engineering from the Technion Israel Institute of Technology in 1989. He worked as a software developer and also served for the next five years as a Lieutenant Commander for the Israeli Navy. He then co-founded his first company, Tri-logical Technologies (an Israeli company) in 1994 before pursuing a PhD, which was awarded to him from the Technion Israel Institute of Technology in Mechanical Engineering in the fall of 1998. From 1998 to 2001, he did his postdoc research at Brandeis University, Computer Science Department, while also lecturing at MIT. Dr Lipson served as Professor of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering and Computing & Information Science at Cornell University for 14 years and joined Columbia University as a Professor in Mechanical Engineering in 2015. From 2013 to 2015, he also served as Editor-in-Chief for the journal 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing (3DP), published by Mary Ann Liebert Inc. Originality/value Dr Lipson’s broad spectrum and multi-decades of research has focused on self-aware and self-replicating robots. Dr Lipson directs the Creative Machines Lab which pioneers new ways for novel autonomous systems to design and make other machines, based on biological concepts. In total, his lab has graduated over 50 graduate students and over 20 PhD and Postdocs. Some of these students joined Lipson, in cofounding startups, while others went on to found their own companies. Lipson has coauthored over 300 publications that received over 20,000 citations. He has also coauthored the award-winning book Fabricated: The New World of 3D Printing and the book Driverless: Intelligent Cars and the Road Ahead. Forbes magazine named him one of the “World's Most Powerful Data Scientists”. His TED Talk on self-aware machines is one of the most viewed presentations on AI and robotics.

Not too Far from the Tree

This article explores the concept of robotic harvesting and use of computer, sensors, and artificial intelligence in the field of harvesting. More powerful computers, better sensors, and improved artificial intelligence promise to make machines competitive with human laborers for picking the apple harvest. Israel-based FFRobotics is one of the two companies racing to commercialize the world’s first mechanical apple picker. FFRobotics plan to test their apple-picking robot on Washington’s 2018 harvest, which runs from mid-August through mid-November. Modern orchard designs also allow engineers to build simpler apple-picking systems, according to Amir Degani, founder of the Civil, Environmental, and Agricultural Robotics Lab at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa. Degani advised with FFRobotics on developing its robotic arm. FFRobotics is still struggling with whether to go with open- or closed-loop controller. The open-loop system recognizes a specific fruit and sends the gripper to that location. If a strong wind moves the apple left or right, the gripper does not follow. The closed-loop system tracks the movement of the fruit by distinctive points on the apple’s face as guides and adjusts the arm as it moves closer to the apple. While closed-loop systems are more effective, they are also too expensive.