iRobot Corporation designs and builds robots that empower people to do more.
For 25 years, we have developed proprietary technology incorporating advanced
concepts in navigation, mobility, manipulation and artificial intelligence to
build industry-leading robots. Our defense and security robots perform tasks
such as battlefield reconnaissance and bomb disposal, and multi-purpose tasks
for law enforcement agencies and first responders, as well as certain commercial
users. Our remote presence robots expand the reach of medical care by connecting
physicians with patients from anywhere in the world and also provide autonomous
telepresence capabilities enabling remote workers to more personally collaborate
throughout the workplace. We sell our robots through a variety of distribution
channels, including chain stores and other national retailers, through our on-line
store, through value-added distributors and resellers, and to the U.S. military
and other government agencies worldwide.
Since our founding, we have accumulated expertise in all the disciplines necessary
to design and build durable, high-performance and cost-effective robots through
the close integration of software, electronics and hardware. Our core technologies
serve as reusable building blocks that we adapt and expand to develop next generation
and new products, reducing the time, cost and risk of product development. Our
significant expertise in robot design and engineering positions us to capitalize
on the growth we expect in the market for robot-based products. We believe that
the sophisticated technologies in our existing applications are adaptable to
a broad array of markets such as commercial cleaning, elder care, home automation,
healthcare, video collaboration, landscaping, agriculture, and other vertical
markets.
Over the past thirteen years, we have sold more than 15 million of our home
robots. During that time, we also sold approximately 6,000 of our defense and
security robots, most of which have been sold to the U.S. military and deployed
on missions in Afghanistan and Iraq, and more recently to state, local and international
government entities.
We are a technology company with the goal of designing and marketing innovative
robots that empower people to do more. Our deep understanding of the consumer,
the consumers needs and how robots meet those needs ensures that every robot
is created with a person in mind. We strive to drive innovation, serve as an
industry catalyst and change the world by fueling the era of robots. We intend
to increase the penetration of our products in existing markets, expand existing
products into new markets, and develop and launch new products into current
and adjacent markets. Our strategy is to maintain a leadership position by delivering
robotic technology-based automated home maintenance solutions that delight our
customers and anticipate their needs, while extending our technical leadership
in the areas of autonomous navigation, manipulation and cloud connectivity and
services. With increasing levels of autonomy, continued mobility improvements,
more sophisticated sensor suites and advanced human interfaces, our robots will
expand in effectiveness and efficiency and reduce the requirements for actual
physical operator presence and control. In the area of automated home maintenance,
we seek to improve the quality of life with robotic solutions requiring as little
human physical intervention as possible.
In order to execute this plan we need to continue to strategically invest
in a number of areas to:
Strengthen our marketing capabilities globally and accelerate worldwide consumer
adoption of Roomba to maintain our market-leading position in robotic vacuum
cleaners;
Better position ourselves in China to capture an even larger share of the rapidly
growing market for robotic floor care;
Develop our wet floor care business to generate a material, secondary revenue
stream;
Scale our infrastructure to support future connected products;
Explore, develop and grow adjacent non-floor care home robot products that can
generate meaningful diversified revenue streams; and
Make continued operational improvements that can reduce product and operating
costs.
Key elements of our strategy include:
Talent: Investing in our people and our culture. To develop and integrate the
best technology and to be the most innovative robotics company, we must attract
the most talented people across our functional areas. Our success is directly
related to the talents and abilities of our workforce, and to a culture, work
environment and leadership that supports its development and growth. Our strategy
focuses on transforming our company into one of the most attractive workplaces
for those seeking to participate in the robotics field.
Technology: Investing in robotic technology and products to build better robots.
A better robot lives in our world by moving around its environment more intelligently,
by cooperating with the people it serves more compellingly, and by physically
interacting with its surroundings more effectively. We strive to achieve and
sustain world leadership with best-in-class technology in the areas of autonomy,
navigation, cloud robotics and manipulation. Our superiority in user experience
comes from leveraging the powerful capabilities of the connected world combined
with thoughtful, intuitive design. We are committed to developing, maturing
and integrating these technologies to support our business and make these a
reality in our products. We implement these technologies with strict cost requirements
to support our high-margin, profitable business model.
Tempo: Investing to improve our agility, speed and operational efficiency. We
strive to increase our pace of innovation and bring compelling products to market
more quickly in a cost-effective and highly reliable form. We are committed
to refining our innovation and product development culture and processes to
deliver results faster by increasing the pace of development, gaining efficiencies
through designing and leveraging modular architecture and reusable hardware
and software components across products, and utilizing remote software updates
and cloud computing to provide rapid cycles for release of new features in the
installed base of our products.
Brand. We invest in building a company with a vision, that strives to solve
difficult problems, and empowers people to do more. We strive to achieve this
image by designing high-quality robots with a recognizable look and feel and
a streamlined ease of use, by employing impactful marketing, and by continuing
to give back to the community. We invest in building and advertising one unified,
global brand.
We are focused on behavior-based, artificially-intelligent systems developed
to meet customer requirements in multiple market segments. Our systems are designed
to move around their environments intelligently, by cooperating with the people
they serve and by physically interacting with their surroundings.
Our robots rely on technology related to navigation, cloud robotics and manipulation
to accomplish their missions autonomously.
Autonomy. Our robots employ intelligent autonomy because, without autonomy,
robots require continuous human attention. Autonomy requires, among other things,
advanced navigation and dynamically updated mapping. We seek to achieve and
sustain a leadership position in navigation and mapping to enable a higher level
of autonomy.
Navigation. Our mobile robots navigate through their environment in a variety
of ways. Some do it simply by reacting to encounters with obstacles. Others
use more sophisticated means that make use of maps to plan out paths, track
their travel, and determine their location in the environment. Intelligent navigation
empowers our robots to operate autonomously with purposeful intent. Autonomous
navigation is the key enabler for our latest products.
Cloud Robotics. Connectivity and cloud services are important because they can
leverage additional computational resources and capabilities. Cloud robotics
refers to cloud-based shared services that solve robotic challenges and enhance
robots’ capabilities. By using the power of off-board computing and storage,
it is possible to develop algorithms that aid with object recognition, post-process
and store large maps, and share data between multiple robots operating in the
same environment. Cloud robotics will allow our robots to plan more intelligently,
be more productive and keep getting smarter as they are used.
Manipulation. Manipulation means physically interacting with the world to move
or control objects. It is ultimately what sets robots apart from any other technology.
Combining these four components, we have created proprietary, reusable building
blocks of robotics capabilities, including mobility platforms, manipulators,
navigation and control algorithms and user interfaces. Our technology building
blocks typically allow us to take a known platform and modify it for a new mission
instead of starting from scratch for each application. We believe this allows
us to design and develop innovative robots quickly and cost-effectively.
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