A robotics company, co-founded by Tipperary man Jamie Palmer, which is building a robotic labour force for space, has announced the completion of a $6.1m funding round.
Icarus Robotics uses artificial intelligence (AI) to create human-controlled robots that can learn and carry out tasks in space.
The company's first-generation robots are operated remotely by humans, a first step toward embodied AI - machines that learn from human demonstrations and eventually carry out complex space tasks autonomously.
Icarus was co-founded by Mr Palmer who was born in Tyrone and moved to Tipperary at the age of five.
He grew up outside Clonmel and attended Cashel Community School before going on to study Mechanical Engineering at Trinity College Dublin.
He built race cars with the Formula Student Team to compete at Silverstone in the UK, and was introduced to startups and entrepreneurship through Patch at Dogpatch Labs
Mr Palmer went on to study robotics at Columbia University.
He is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Icarus which has built multiple prototypes and secured partnerships with NASA and major commercial space station developers.
According to the company, labour has become a pressing bottleneck in space missions with astronauts spending much of their time on mundane tasks such as cargo handling and equipment checks.
"We're asking hundred-thousand-dollar-an-hour talent to do warehouse work in space - and millions more to transport them there, all paid for by taxpayers," said Icarus CEO and co-founder Ethan Barajas.
"Our robots start by learning from human demonstrations, then handle the repetitive work while astronauts focus on discoveries only humans can make," Mr Barajas said.
Existing space robotics relies on rigid, pre-programmed systems that must be redesigned for every new use case.
The robots being designed by Icarus will have built-in intelligence allowing them to physically interact with their environment and learn, adapt, and evolve while in space.
They will be able to take on a full range of space labour such as intravehicular activities, tasks performed inside spacecraft, and eventually scaling to large-scale orbital construction, such as maintaining satellites and infrastructure in space.
"Every major robotics company on Earth is using embodied AI to create adaptable, learning robots, but space is still using control methods from the 1980s," said Mr Palmer said.
"We're not just putting robots in space, we're bringing the robotics revolution to space operations through systems that learn from human expertise," he added,
The $6.1m seed funding round was led by Soma Capital and Xtal, with additional investment from Nebular and Massive Tech Ventures, among others.
Existing space robotics relies on rigid, pre-programmed systems that must be redesigned for every new use case.
The robots being designed by Icarus will have built-in intelligence allowing them to physically interact with their environment and learn, adapt, and evolve while in space.
They will be able to take on a full range of space labour such as intravehicular activities, tasks performed inside spacecraft, and eventually scaling to large-scale orbital construction, such as maintaining satellites and infrastructure in space.
"Every major robotics company on Earth is using embodied AI to create adaptable, learning robots, but space is still using control methods from the 1980s," said Mr Palmer said.
"We're not just putting robots in space, we're bringing the robotics revolution to space operations through systems that learn from human expertise," he added,
The $6.1m seed funding round was led by Soma Capital and Xtal, with additional investment from Nebular and Massive Tech Ventures, among others.
