Hidden in a few inconspicuous warehouses along the Allegheny River in Lawrenceville, robots walk around on two legs and practice driving on the moon. They use sophisticated laser eyes to spot objects hundreds of feet away, pilot tanks and check blueberries for ripeness.
When Pittsburgh’s unlikely “Robotics Row” got that title back in 2018, it was anchored by a few promising ventures focused mostly on autonomous vehicles.
Since then, some startups have scattered throughout town or shut down, while new players have entered the scene. Their stories demonstrate a uniquely Pittsburgh ethos of repurposing steel mills and finding scrappy collaborations along the way, a mindset that — if commercial real estate developers have their way — could drive new neighborhood strength in places like AI Avenue and the space corridor on the North Shore.
“It's a great strategy for the region to pursue these innovation districts,” said Don Smith, president of Regional Industrial Development Corp., the private nonprofit many credit with seeding the ground for Robotics Row. “Right now they're a little more of a brand than they are a reality. But we have the elements that, if we really focused, could make them reality.”
“And the interesting thing is that space and AI are all related to the same core research strengths that enabled the Robotics Row.”
The Post-Gazette spent some time with the pioneers of the quartier to test the benefits of cohabitation.
Agility
The nation’s largest grocery retailer and a chocolate manufacturer once called a Lawrenceville office building home. Today, robots nearly six-feet tall own the space.
Aptly named “The Chocolate Factory”, the building on 43rd Street houses Agility Robotics — creators of the walking humanoid bots deployed in warehouses nationwide. The autonomous robots, called Digit, respond to spoken commands and complete repetitive tasks, like moving boxes. Last year, Agility sent Digit into Amazon warehouses and a Spanx distribution center. The company is also partnered with Nvidia and recently inked a deal with logistics giant GXO to place Digit in more work environments.
Agility has benefitted from trading notes with contemporaries on Robotics Row, Chief Technology Officer Pras Velagapudi said. But as rent climbs, he envisions Pittsburgh’s robotics network expanding beyond its hub there.
As for Agility, Mr. Velagapudi wants to see Digit in more warehouses. And eventually, he hopes to send the bots into new spaces, from homes to construction sites.
Bloomfield Robotics
A converted horse stable now houses this agricultural tech firm, which fits all terrain vehicles with specialized AI cameras that can tell farmers when grapes and blueberries ripen.
They’ve found success in Peru rather than Pennsylvania, but credit the Pittsburgh region for its talent pipeline.
As jackhammers whirled away on Butler Street during a recent visit, sales director Andrew Littell described the commotion as a sign of progress.
“The amount of construction on this road is indicative of the demand that there is for companies to be based here,” he said.
Pittsburgh’s “Robotics Row”
Like many startups in the region, Bloomfield has drawn talent directly from Carnegie Mellon University. It has also enjoyed the casual connections of an immediate, shared community.
“If you go to Espresso Amano and just hang there, you will probably meet most of the robotics professionals that work in the neighborhood,” Mr. Littell said.
ProtoInnovations
This space startup built a sealed glass chamber to test its robot rovers on replica moon dust. The bay blocks out contaminants, like costume feathers that might waft over from the dance studio next door.
“It’s a really fun space,” said founder Dimi Apostolopoulos, who spent a recent morning teaching at CMU and the afternoon meeting with roboticists at NREC next door.
Despite his packed schedule, Mr. Apostolopoulos worries that Robotics Row is in a bit of a “recession.” Autonomous vehicle companies have struggled and shut down, as have firms like RE2 and Bossa Nova, which made aisle-scanning bots for Walmart.
“There's a lot more interest in data” and AI now, he said, which could help his former neighbor, Walnut Capital CEO Gregg Perelman, achieve his goal of an AI Avenue in East Liberty.
Even ProtoInnovations has made a pivot into software, recognizing the value of offering a few specialized portions of code to a lunar mission. “For us, it became a much more attainable model,” Mr. Apostolopoulos said.
NREC
Where it all started. The National Robotics Engineering Center hasn’t changed much since it moved into the converted steel mill next to the train tracks in 1996.
Partners include John Deere and the U.S. Department of Defense. Old projects hang from the rafters, greeting visitors and gathering dust. They include a computerized Chevy and an oversized spider bot that got a bit too close to the lip of a volcano.
“It had to be picked up with a helicopter,” said associate director Jeff Legault.
NREC got its start with funding from NASA and CMU. The center focuses on taking projects beyond R&D to deployment, though most of its industrial applications are under the radar.
“They work for governments and private companies that don't want this sort of technology leaking out,” said Bloomfield co-founder Tim Mueller-Sim.
But what does escape is talent.
“The people who go there and work and develop their technologies are on the cutting edge of robotics, computer vision, AI,” Mr. Mueller-Sim said. “And when their tenure there is up, they sort of flow out in the community, which is very beneficial to us.”
Carnegie Robotics
Also under the radar, CR has recently made a name for itself through partnerships with Boston Whaler and the U.S. Army, helping boats and military vehicles navigate on their own. Inside a twin steel mill just across the tracks from NREC, engineers slide under tanks parked next to framed photos of a visit from former President Barack Obama.
Chief development officer Mike Embrescia said CR got lucky with the building and its accompanying five acres.
“RIDC just invested in distressed properties because nobody else was doing it,” he said.
By his estimation, CR could have been just as successful out in the suburbs. But he acknowledged that “every neighborhood needs a catalyst.” And there are some pretty direct benefits — beyond talent sharing — to being neighbors with fellow industrialists: When NREC needed a scissor lift, Mr. LeGault said they came next door to CR to borrow one.
Aurora
Aurora Innovation’s Strip District headquarters look out on luxury apartments and The Terminal, the historic former produce center now filled with retail and restaurants.
Matt Blackburn, senior manager of government relations at one of Pittsburgh’s most funded autonomous vehicle startups, believes the view shows how robotics helped revitalize the city.
“Five years ago, there was nothing over there,” he said.
Founded in 2017, Aurora survived the demise of Uber and Argo AI, big names in self-driving vehicle development that pioneered Robotics Row. The company named Pittsburgh its official headquarters in 2021, shortly before going public. Today, Aurora has around 900 employees in the city.
Over the last few years, the company has expanded to Texas and — like others on Robotics Row — worked steadily toward commercialization. Now, they’re near-ready to bring Aurora Driver, a self-driving system designed for multiple vehicle types, to market. If Aurora and others on the stretch achieve commercial success, Mr. Blackburn said, he envisions Robotics Row’s mainstays becoming household names across the country.
Humotech
Humotech moved from the quiet suburb of Harmar to the clank and “buzz” of Lawrenceville’s Robotics Factory in part because Harmar felt lonely. Now, surrounded by other startups making use of the federally-backed coworking space, founder Josh Caputo said he feels encouraged to learn new manufacturing skills.
He also gets help with documentation — a less fun aspect of building a company that is nonetheless crucial to securing FDA approvals.
The startup is developing prosthetics and exoskeletons for rehabilitation. Paralympian John Siciliano is an early test case and a fan.
“This is freakin’ awesome,” he said during a recent visit, while testing a robotic boot that can adjust to replicate a variety of prosthetic feet. “Can we go faster?”
Participants in the Robotics Factory can only use the space for one year, leaving Mr. Caputo with a difficult decision.
“We're feeling the pull to be a little bit more in the thick of it,” he said. “We also don't want to triple our rent.”
What’s Next?
It’s not clear whether Robotics Row will continue to attract new firms. As Agility’s CTO noted, the neighborhood has become increasingly expensive. A variety of companies already have chosen to build elsewhere in the city. Astrobotic is now committed to the North Side. Titan moved out to Moon. Motional is working in Hazelwood under RIDC’s next steel conversion known as Mill 19.
It wasn’t some grand vision that inspired Lawrenceville’s transformation, RIDC’s Mr. Smith said. “Some of it was just like, we'd sponsored a loan for Geoffrey Boehm Chocolates and they defaulted, so we took over the building,” he said.
It’s also not clear whether any of these firms will achieve lasting commercial success. Back in 2018, when MIT Technology Review toured the neighborhood, it called the various projects “a glimpse of the future.”
Mr. Smith is still waiting for that future to become a reality.
“Our robotics cluster — while it's bigger in number of companies and more diverse — we're still sort of waiting for our big breakthrough,” he said. “If Aurora, which has made so much progress, makes it over the finish line, that'll be the biggest success we've had.”
First Published: September 9, 2024, 9:30 a.m.
Updated: September 10, 2024, 1:46 a.m.
