Innovative Polish Hill company looks to future of robotics, technology

Need a robot that can crawl up a metal wall? How about one with suction cup legs that can go almost anywhere?

It won’t be long until robots with those abilities and more become common.

In fact, you can see them now in Pittsburgh’s Polish Hill neighborhood.

HEBI Robotics is celebrating 10 years of robot innovation with an eye toward the future.

“We make a platform for robot development,” CEO Bob Raida said.

HEBI aims to create a platform that makes building robots more accessible and user-friendly.

“The long-term vision is to make it easier for anybody to create whatever robots they need,” Raida said.

The company offers robotic arms, treaded and wheeled mobile bases and walking robots.

The company started through snake robots — which are exactly what it sounds like — long, robotic “snakes,” Raida said. Hebi means “snake” in Japanese. In 2017, Snakebot made an appearance on the Jimmy Fallon show.

HEBI originated in Carnegie Mellon University’s biorobotics lab and is made up of a team from different disciplines, Raida said. It’s led by CMU professor Howie Choset and specializes in robotics hardware and software.

HEBI posts videos of its robots to YouTube. Some partners include NASA, Texas A&M, Siemens and Chevron.

Dave Rollinson, company co-founder and chief technology officer, often tells his colleagues at HEBI that, if you’ve got to have a grown-up job, working for HEBI is a pretty good gig.

HEBI held an open house Friday to kick off its 10th year. In the robotics industry, that’s an impressive feat, Rollinson said.

“Still being around after 10 years is no small task,” Rollinson said.

Challenges include keeping up with industry trends and the latest technology. Fortunately for HEBI, many of its clients are in academia and monitor developing technologies.

Other challenges include remaining profitable, Rollinson said.

Sometimes, though, the challenges are more down-to-earth — or even underwater.

Such a problem befell the robot known as “Tready,” capable of navigating difficult terrain, climbing stairs and accessing tight spaces. Tready was developed to help a customer inspect landslides, and its technology has since advanced from there, Raida said.

In July 2021, HEBI and a videographer team decided to create a video of a Tready robot traversing the Allegheny River, near Aspinwall. Near the end of the shoot, Tready actually got stuck and fell back into the water.

Robotics crews weren’t able to locate the “Allegheny Tready,” but a scuba team did despite murky waters that left visibility at zero. The robot was missing a googly-eye but otherwise worked fine.

“We didn’t think there was a good chance it was going to be retrieved,” Raida said, laughing.

The Allegheny Tready was another one of the robots on display at the open house.

Future projects include a magnetic crawling robot that goes vertically up walls and another robot that deals with steam generators. Other projects include a system that uses suction legs to hit difficult-to-reach spots. Another future robot is a pipe-crawling robot to navigate industrial pipes.

HEBI also will look to advance its actuator technology. Actuators — like a “Lego for robots,” Raida said — allow researchers to create custom robots of any configuration and include sensors that enable control of position, velocity and torque.

“We’re continuously pushing the envelope,” Raida said.

Raida said he would like to see HEBI continue to be a leader in the robotics and technology field and “see Pittsburgh continue to progress as a robotics and technology hub.”