Sony is investing in Acutronic Robotics‘ Series A round, via its Sony Innovation Fund. Sony will also adopt Acutronic's Hardware Robot Operating System (H-ROS), for use in its own robotics division, the company says. This funding follows investment by DARPA in Acutronic's platform, which aims to become an industry standard for robotics components from across hardware and software providers.

Acutronic Robotics, a Swiss company with operations in Spains Basque Country,

Switzerland, and the United States has closed on its Series A financing round with the Sony Innovation Fund. The investment will allow the company to accelerate the development of the Hardware Robot Operating System ( H-ROS ), the next big standard for robotic components.

Since its inception, Acutronic Robotics has worked on a common hardware and software infrastructure that will allow different components to interoperate, thereby solving one of the major issues facing the robotics field today. The company was established in 2016 by Víctor Mayoral, Carlos Uraga, and J.A. Technologies (J.A.T.), after the latter acquired Erle Robotics, a company previously founded by the brothers David and Víctor Mayoral.

H-ROS serves as an infrastructure for robotics that allows manufacturers and integrators to work under a uniform set of standards, thereby allowing them to mix different components and avoiding the usual pain of needing to program a unique interface for each component. H-ROS allows users to build systems quickly and easily, in full compliance with the latest industrial and commercial standards. This will democratize the construction of robots and provide access to a much wider field of developers.

Following the transaction, Víctor Mayoral and Carlos Uraga will serve as the companys Managing Directors. The Board of Directors will consist of Florian Aigrain (Chairman and representative of J.A.T.), Christian Sieber, Carlos Uraga, Víctor Mayoral and Sonys representative.

Carlos Uraga highlights: " Standards such as H-ROS are the needed next step for robotics to grow worldwide. The expected growth of a $150 billion market by 2020 is not going to take place without infrastructures like this. Builders and integrators are constantly facing the complexity of robots but H-ROS provides the tools for robotics to become accessible to everyone. Big companies and small players will now be able to play together on the same level. Even the latest ISO standards are being developed by taking H-ROS into account."

Víctor Mayoral remarked: " H-ROS aims to change the landscape of robotics by creating an ecosystem where hardware components can be reused among different robots, regardless of the original manufacturer. We strongly believe that the future of robotics will be about modular robots that can be easily repaired and reconfigured. H-ROS aims to shape this future. Sonys leadership and vision in robotics is widely recognized in the community. We are confident that, with their support, our present innovations will spread even more rapidly."

H-ROS will be released under a license and royalty model. A wide variety of robotic parts and components will also be commercially released through the creation of a marketplace for modular robotic components powered by H-ROS. The modularity of H-ROS has engendered the collaboration of Acutronic Robotics and several standardization organizations, including ISO and IEC. Together, they are working on next-generation robotics standards.

About Acutronic Link Robotics AG ("Acutronic Robotics")

Acutronic Robotics is a leading robotics development firm focused on next-generation solutions for a range of clients. The company has three primary business lines: the development and commercialization of the Hardware Robot Operating System ("H-ROS"); robot and drone interoperable hardware products; B2B engineering services offered to corporate and governmental clients.

Acutronic Robotics is headquartered in Switzerland and has locations in Spain and the United States. For more information, visit www.acutronicrobotics.com

About H-ROS

H-ROS: the "Hardware Operating System for Robots" is the first standardized software and hardware infrastructure to create reusable and reconfigurable robots. Built upon the widely used ROS standard, H-ROS was designed to simplify and speed up the construction of robots.

For more information, visit www.h-ros.com