In a groundbreaking move for maritime decarbonization, Pyxis, an emerging maritime electrification tech company, and fuel cell component pioneer, Sydrogen Energy, have inked a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). The...

Pyxis and Sydrogen Energy Unite for Maritime Hydrogen Fuel Cell Innovation

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IRVING, Texas, Aug. 3, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Pyxis Advisory Group, a diversified advisory firm serving the global industrial sector, is delighted to add two new team members. Stephen Bell joins the firm as partner and industry veteran Richard Loew onboards as a senior advisor. Richard Loew, Senior Advisor
Pyxis Advisory Group's mission is to deliver lasting results for its clients and create unmatched development opportunities for its professionals. Pyxis currently serves a global client base with services including merger and acquisition support, commodities trading, risk management, technology start-up support, and digital transformation. With a successful career dedicated to adding value to clients, Stephen will assist Pyxis' global clients with supporting mergers and acquisitions, digital transformation, and complex business and IT implementation services. Stephen brings almost 30 years of leadership experience in IT strategy, business transformation, major program execution, and solution delivery. During his career, he has played leadership roles in the successful execution and delivery of several major transformation programs at Fortune 50 companies. His clients have included companies across the aerospace & defense, high-technology manufacturing, petrochemicals, automotive, commodity trading, and oil & gas industries. Examples of his most recent work include leading the IT enablement of a multi-year commodity trading business transformation program, defining the IT execution plan for US refinery acquisition, and leading the North America go to market activities across the Oil & Gas industry for a global Systems Integrator. "I've worked alongside my colleague Stephen for several years and have seen his ability to successfully navigate complex and strategic transformational initiatives for clients. His dedication to clients and "doing what is right" for them has always been at the core of his approach to client service," said Steven Bradford, Partner of Pyxis Advisory Group. "Stephen will be an excellent addition to the Pyxis leadership team. We are thrilled that he has joined us and excited for the deep expertise he will bring to Pyxis' clients." "My fellow partners at Pyxis bring an unparalleled level of experience and a long track record of success in the advisory business," said Bell. "I have played multiple roles in my career where I engaged with members of the current Pyxis leadership team, and I look forward to collaborating with them to solve critical issues for both past and future clients." Leveraging decades of global experience, Richard as senior advisor will assist Pyxis' global clients with supporting mergers and acquisitions, digital transformation, and strategic CIO advisory services. Richard served as CIO for more than 10 years across three different companies within Oil & Gas focused in the Refining sector (process manufacturing). He has a strong technology and leadership foundation due to his tenure with Price Waterhouse in the Management Consulting group. He has led IT through 3 IPO's, led IT Acquisition Integration across 10 acquired assets in US, UK, France, Germany, and Belgium for three companies including Motiva, PBF and Petroplus. "I am excited to be joining the Pyxis team to further leverage and share my first-hand experience as CIO for multiple international and domestic companies in the refining sector," said Richard. "Given the multiple M&A integrations I have been through, coupled with my experience building, running, and pivoting IT organizations in private, pre-IPO, and post-IPO environments, I feel certain of my ability to contribute to our client journeys whether they be focusing on challenges experienced during start-up, growth, or transformation." "We are eager to have Richard join the leadership team at Pyxis Advisory Group. I've had the pleasure of working closely with Richard both as a colleague and a client, and he brings invaluable insights and experience to our clients," said Matt Flanagan, Partner of Pyxis Advisory Group. "Having served the industry and several companies as CIO, he brings unique perspectives to drive real value for our clients' organizations." About Pyxis Advisory Group
Pyxis Advisory Group is a diversified advisory firm serving the global industrial sector. Our mission is to deliver lasting results for our clients and to create unmatched development opportunities for our professionals. Our clients tell us they value our highly collaborative approach combined with our deep industry expertise. For more information on Pyxis Advisory Group, please visit our website at pyxisadvisory.com . Media Contact:

Pyxis Advisory Group Adds New Partner &amp; Senior Advisor to Team

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PlanetiQ's latest satellites carry the fourth-generation Pyxis radio occultation sensor which receives signals from all four global navigation satellite system constellations: Beidou, Galileo, Glonass and GPS. Credit: PlanetiQ
SAN FRANCISCO – PlanetiQ won a $60 million contract to deliver daily weather data to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration over five years. It was PlanetiQ’s first sale of operational radio occultation data for numerical weather models. In the past, Golden, Colorado-based PlanetiQ has delivered data to other government agencies for evaluation and testing. “This is a very big deal for us,” PlanetiQ CEO Ira Scharf told SpaceNews. “NOAA is obviously one of the biggest buyers of weather data in the world. It’s a tremendous credibility boost. It shows the quality of our data, the reliability of our data and the impact that data can have on weather forecasting.”
PlanetiQ plans to establish a 20-satellite constellation. Two PlanetiQ satellites are in orbit and a third is scheduled to launch later this year. Several more” are on deck for 2024, Scharf said. Bending Light
PlanetiQ’s satellites are equipped with receivers to pick up signals from the U.S. Global Positioning System, Russia’s Glonass, Europe’s Galileo and China’s Beidou global navigation satellite systems. Atmospheric density, which bends the angle of the GNSS signals, can reveal temperature, pressure, humidity and electron density in the signal’s path. “Our state-of-the-art, next-generation radio occultation sensors, called Pyxis, are smaller, lighter and consume less power, but have nearly three times the data collection capability than any other system in operation today as we receive signals from all four world-wide GNSS constellations,” Rob Kursinski, PlanetiQ co-founder and chief scientist, said in a statement. Scharf added that the PlanetiQ data will help NOAA “significantly improve short and medium-range weather forecasts, and provide essential insights to enhance climate change research for the government, military and the private sector.”
“PlanetiQ is very pleased to be selected by NOAA to support its global operational needs for GNSS-RO,” Chris McCormick, PlanetiQ co-founder and president, said in a statement. “We look forward to launching more spacecraft in the next 18 months to expand our global coverage and resolution to further support NOAA and international partners in weather forecasting and climate research.”
Slow and Steady Development
Founded in 2015, PlanetiQ has raised more than $35 million to date, including $18.7 million in 2019. PlanetiQ established a radio occultation constellation after some of its competitors like Spire Global and GeoOptics, but company officials say the time was well spent since their receivers produce high-quality data at low cost. Space Weather
In addition to improving terrestrial weather forecasts, radio occultation data is useful for understanding space weather. NOAA awarded contracts last year to GeoOptics, PlanetiQ and Spire to provide space weather data as part of a pilot program to test the value of the commercial observations. Related

PlanetiQ wins $60 million NOAA contract

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The Pyxis solution from IAM Robotics is a complete person-to-goods workflow automation solution. | Credit: IAM Robotics
I recently reported on IAM Robotics launching an automated solution designed for person-to-goods (P2G) warehouse workflow. The company is entering a new chapter focused on the hottest segment of autonomous mobile robot (AMR) applications and one that has already been proven through the efforts of companies like Locus Robotics and 6 River Systems . The rebirth of IAM Robotics is significant because it is the latest chapter in what was a valiant attempt to commercialize mobile manipulators. It’s also a poignant lesson in failed market fit and knowing when to pivot as a robotics startup. A classic garage startup
IAM Robotics started in Vlad Altman’s Pittsburgh basement and quickly moved to a local township garage building to model a working warehouse. Co-founder Tom Galuzzo had a passion for mobile robots and a robotics degree from Carnegie Mellon University. At the time, the idea of putting a robot arm onto a mobile platform and using it to pick items from shelves was one of the remaining “holy grail” challenges in robotics. It was also a year after Amazon’s historic acquisition of Kiva Systems for $775 million – the potential for robotics in warehousing was in the spotlight. It took until 2015 for IAM Robotics to raise its first seed round and introduce its Swift robot on the promise of automated picking in the warehouse. This was when IAM Robotics first appeared on my radar as an innovative solution for goods-to-person workflows in the warehouse. At the time, I was leading product management for the mobile robot business at Adept Technology, and no other vendor in the market was commercializing a mobile manipulator for warehousing applications. The company was pushing the boundaries of robotics technology, simultaneously solving the problems of vision-guided mobile manipulation and developing strategies for AMR perception, obstacle avoidance, and the challenges of battery-supported operations. Using mobile manipulators to pick from shelves
What immediately struck me about the Swift robot was that it didn’t pick up individual items from bulk SKU bins stored in the warehouse. Rather, it worked by picking from stock that was stored in organized rows on a shelf, not unlike what you might see in the front-of-house retail space of your corner drugstore. The original IAM Robotics Swift mobile manipulator autonomously picked items from neatly organized warehouse shelves. | Credit: IAM Robotics (Wayback Machine Archive)
I had never seen a warehouse space with products organized in neat product rows like this, and that was my first red flag about the viability of Swift. To make the system work, Swift required a 3D model of each product SKU. With the 3D model, the robot’s vision system could then identify the item on the shelf and determine the correct pose of the robot to acquire the item. The company developed a novel 3D item scanning station called “Flash” that would ingest a new product SKU, image it and add it to the 3D library of items that Swift could now handle. IAM Robotics originally developed a complete solution that included a 3D scanner, enterprise software and a warehouse picking robot. | Credit: IAM Robotics (Wayback Machine Archive)
To function properly, Swift also had to autonomously handle product replenishment, putting items onto the warehouse shelves in those neat and organized rows. The idea to replenish the shelves autonomously looked great on an ROI spreadsheet, but Swift wasn’t fast enough (compared to human warehouse associates) at replenishing the shelves in the real world. It also couldn’t easily work side-by-side with human associates in warehouse aisles due to its working dimensions. Another concern for the viability of Swift was the target segment of “warehouses with highly organized shelves” was just too small. The majority of warehouses and distribution centers store bulk items contained in bins or boxes on the warehouse shelves. Bulk storage is simply the most efficient and cost-effective method of using precious warehouse space. Lastly, the inability of Swift to pick items from bins (the “holy grail” application) ultimately sealed its fate. In the warehouse, humans are very adept at pulling individual items from bulk storage. This realization led the company to rethink its portfolio. Creation of an AMR platform
Fast forward to 2020, and IAM Robotics made the first pivot with the design and launch of its Bolt AMR, using all of the knowledge and experience gained from engineering Swift. The goal of Bolt was to offer a standard AMR base that could be deployed into any AMR application. This was a competitive market with a large number of established vendors, including companies like OMRON, Fetch Robotics, MiR, OTTO Motors and others. Unfortunately, this was also the start of the pandemic. While e-commerce was exploding in popularity (along with the demand for automated support for warehouse labor shortages), there were also hundreds of AMR competitors on the market with standard AMR platforms. The novel innovation for Bolt was a swappable battery that could be quickly changed with minimal downtime of the AMR. But it wasn’t enough. IAM Robotics developed two AMRs, the G2P Swift (left) and new P2G Lumabot (right). | Credit: IAM Robotics
In 2021, the company restructured, hired CEO Lance Vandenbrook, let go of many of the original mobile manipulation-focused engineering teams, hired the necessary enterprise software engineering team and entered a self-imposed “stealth mode” to retool. Person-to-goods workflow is the hot application segment
The company recently re-emerged with a new person-to-goods (P2G) warehouse workflow, leveraging all of the intellectual property from its early days in AMR development and adding a new, robust, fully featured enterprise workflow layer on top. The new Pyxis (pronounced pix-us) solution is designed to be competitive with existing P2G solutions such as Locus Robotics and 6 River Systems. The focus for IAM Robotics has changed from being a mobile robotics company to a warehouse workflow company, managing the tasks of both human associates and mobile robots. The new Lumabot is designed specifically for person-to-goods automation in a warehouse. | Credit: IAM Robotics
The company launched a new AMR called Lumabot, taking the Bolt AMR base and outfitting it with a payload of fixed shelves and pick/put-to-light guides. Human associates interface with the solution through a wearable that communicates customer orders, quantity and SKU locations. Lumabot robots move autonomously to the pick location where humans pull individual items from bins and place them in outgoing customer order bins. The Lumabots then take assembled customer orders to pack out stations for final consolidation, packaging and labeling. The Pyxis solution manages the operations of all of the human associates in the warehouse, together with the fleet of Lumabots to manage customer order picking and consolidation. The system is designed to be deployed in either greenfield or brownfield opportunities and offered as a robots-as-a-service (RaaS) business model . The Pyxis solution directs the human associates with information about which item to pick and where to place the item for a customer order. The Lumabot then moves items to a pack-out station. | Credit: IAM Robotics
About The Author
Mike Oitzman
Mike Oitzman is Editor of WTWH's Robotics Group and founder of the Mobile Robot Guide. Oitzman is a robotics industry veteran with 25-plus years of experience at various high-tech companies in the roles of marketing, sales and product management. He can be reached at [email protected] . Tell Us What You Think!

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