Matt Carlson is the Vice President of Business Development at WiBotic Inc, a company that provides reliable wireless power solutions to charge aerial, mobile and aquatic robot systems. Why are wireless charging solutions so important to the future of robotics? Robots need the ability to autonomously charge for most applications. It simply isn't cost effective to hire a staff of workers to manage battery charging or battery swapping. However, most autonomous charging today is done using docking stations that require physical mating of electrical contacts.

It's been two years since the last time I judged the Automate Startup Competition. More than any other trade show contest, this event has been an oracle of future success. In following up with the last vintage of participants, all of the previous entrees are still operating and many are completing multi-million dollar financing rounds. As an indication of the importance of the venue, and quite possibly the growth of the industry, The Robot Report announced last week that 2017 finalist, Kinema Systems was acquired by SoftBank's Boston Dynamics. Traditionally, autonomous machines at the ProMat Show have been relegated to a subsection of the exhibit floor under the Automate brand.

For drones and other autonomous vehicles to carry out lengthy, meaningful assignments such as ongoing aerial surveillance or a day of delivering packages, they will need a reliable way to recharge their batteries with little or no human intervention. Seattle-based startup WiBotic, a spinout from the University of Washington, is developing a suite of wireless charging technology and battery management software that would enable a drone to land on a base station for a quick fill-up, or a slow, battery-friendly overnight recharge. The company, which recently raised a $2.5 million seed funding round from Tsing Capital and other investors, is one of several startups and more established companies trying to crack wireless power, using various technologies, for a wide range of applications. Just in the Seattle area, there's Ossia, which is developing its Cota technology, designed to charge multiple devices in a room, and LaserMotive, which aims to send beams of power to drones in flight or vehicles in space. Wireless charging has been around in concept for a long time.

Claridge, founder of xCraft, is best known for being the first contestant on Shark Tank to receive money from all the Sharks – even Kevin O'Leary! Walking the floor of Xponential 2017, the annual convention of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems Integration (AUVSI), Claridge remarked to me how the drone industry has grown up since his TV appearance. Claridge has gone from pitching cellphone cases that turn into drones (aka phonedrone) to solving mission critical problems. The age of fully autonomous flight is near and the drone industry is finally recovering from the hangover of overhyped Kickstarter videos (see Lily drone's $34 million fraud). During the three days of Xponential 2017, several far-reaching announcements were made between stalwarts of the tech industry and aviation startups.