Autonomous Robotics at the Kinetic Edge

Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge deconstructs the traditional “large building” data center into a cluster of tightly-integrated hyper-local micro data centers connected by high-speed fiber and embedded in the urban fabrics, such as at the base of cell towers. The distributed nature of the Kinetic Edge makes it possible to span an entire city, provide low-latency hyperscale compute at the edge of the wireless and wireline networks. In essence, the Kinetic Edge presents a city-sized, software-controlled virtual data center that, while comprised of IT equipment spread across hundreds of square miles, behaves as if located in the same building. The first Kinetic Edge deployment is underway in Chicago.

Hangar’s Robotics-as-a-System will use the Kinetic Edge to plan and execute autonomous missions that produce 4D Visual Insights for Enterprises in many industries. Hangar’s real-time system includes data sources that are required for autonomous robotics, but is also capable of delivering on the requirements for autonomous cars, including precision navigation, microlocation, microclimate and universal traffic assistance.

“Hangar has run hundreds of thousands of drone missions, capturing imagery for millions of objects. They are the de facto standard for autonomous drone deployments,” said Cole Crawford, founder and CEO of Vapor IO. “Combining Hangar’s technology with Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge will create a nationwide footprint for completely autonomous drone missions, paving the way to deliver critical infrastructure for all types autonomous vehicles, not just drones, but also cars and trucks.”

By partnering to deliver Robotics-as-a-System capabilities at the Kinetic Edge, the companies aim to deliver:

• Enormous economic value. Autonomous robots will let municipalities and commercial businesses perform highly-specialized tasks, such as building or infrastructure inspections, at much lower costs and achieve much better outcomes. Gartner estimates that $3.7 Billion was generated from approximately 175k commercial drones in 2017. A recent study by AUVSI estimates that In the US alone, drones have the potential to create $82 billion in positive economic impacts and generate more than 100,000 jobs by 2025.
• A nationwide and open platform for real-time Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X). By encouraging diverse ecosystem players to leverage the Kinetic Edge as a general-purpose, shareable platform, Vapor IO seeks to enable services for autonomous vehicles that will include precision navigation, microlocation, microclimate awareness and universal traffic assistance.
• Rich autonomous ecosystem. By offering a single, shared and open infrastructure to support any number of autonomous devices—not just drones, but also cars, trucks—the Kinetic Edge will attract a diverse ecosystem of suppliers and consumers of shared autonomous services.

The Kinetic Edge and Project Volutus

The Kinetic Edge will be rolled out in the US via Project Volutus, a partnership that was announced in June of last year. Project Volutus seeks to deploy a nationwide network of Kinetic Edge micro data centers in key metropolitan cities and the partners are now deploying to the first cities, including Chicago as the first Kinetic Edge city. By building Hangar’s Robotics-as-a-System on top of Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge, the companies plan to leverage infrastructure for autonomous robotics across the entire network of Project Volutus cities as they come online.

For more about Vapor IO, and to learn about Vapor Kinetic Edge and Project Volutus, please visit www.vapor.io and www.volutus.io . For additional information on Hangar and their suite of offerings, please visit www.hangar.com.

Supporting Resources

• Twitter
• Blog
• LinkedIn
• More information on Hangar’s Robotics-as-a-System at the Kinetic Edge
• Hangar blog post on this announcement
• Vapor IO blog post on this announcement

About Vapor IO

Vapor IO has developed the first end-to-end platform for building and operating autonomous data centers at the edge of the network. Referred to as the Kinetic Edge, Vapor IO’s technology enables highly-distributed micro data centers to be embedded in the wireless and wireline infrastructure, colocated with the last mile or Radio Access Network (RAN), and meshed together with software and high-speed fiber for remote operations, fault tolerance, low-latency workloads and scale. The company has also built Project Volutus, a partnership with landowners and infrastructure providers to deliver edge as a service using modern data center automation and a colocation business model. For additional information, please visit www.vapor.io.

About Hangar

Hangar, the world’s first robotics-as-a-system data acquisition platform, exists to serve and nurture an ecosystem of mobile robotics software, hardware, services and data for large enterprises and infrastructure owners. Our partners include hardware manufacturers of aerobotic drones, mobile robots, and sensor platforms; professional service providers including drones-as-a-service providers, robots-as-a-service providers, and data transformation innovators, computer vision, machine learning and analytics software firms. This Hangar powered ecosystem shares a strong belief and desire to bring 4D Visual Insight to provide improved efficiency, safety, innovation and digital transformation and empowerment to our collective customers and their industries. For additional information, please visit www.Hangar.com.

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Media contact:

Eleni Laughlin for Vapor IO
Mindshare PR
eleni@mindsharepr.com
(510) 406-0798

Josh Meler for Hangar Technology
Hangar Technology
josh@hangar.com
(512) 982-0385