Developing robotics applied to industry. This is the work carried out since 2022 by Binarial, a company founded in Padrón that shortly afterwards moved to Ames, where a team of 15 people seeks solutions to streamline tasks such as detecting defects in packaging and optimizing industrial operations.
Binarial’s life has been short but intense. This innovative, 100% Galician technology-based company has developed several solutions to industrial challenges, working with the industry over the long term to improve results. Beyond this, it has just been awarded funding in the latest call from the Centre for the Development of Technology and Innovation (CDTI), endorsed by the Spanish Navy, to develop dual-use technology together with Navantia and SATEC.
Developing robotics applied to industry. This is the work carried out since 2022 by Binarial, a company founded in Padrón that shortly afterwards moved to Ames, where a team of 15 people seeks solutions to streamline tasks such as detecting defects in packaging and optimizing industrial operations.
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Binarial’s life has been short but intense. This innovative, 100% Galician technology-based company has developed several solutions to industrial challenges, working with the industry over the long term to improve results. Beyond this, it has just been awarded funding in the latest call from the Centre for the Development of Technology and Innovation (CDTI), endorsed by the Spanish Navy, to develop dual-use technology together with Navantia and SATEC.
The company will thus transfer the technology that is already working successfully in its autonomous robotic platforms to two areas: 100% autonomous maritime navigation even when there is no satellite signal, and command and control of swarms of marine drones based on decentralized networks. These are two strategic challenges on which the Ames-based company is already working, with the first results expected by the end of this year.
Solutions for industry
“We founded the company as three friends who really liked robotics and decided to focus on this field applied to industry. We started by carrying out industrial engineering projects and, in parallel, developing our own robots,” explains Binarial CEO Rodrigo Randulfe, who points out that although they encourage remote work, the type of tasks they carry out requires physical access to the systems.
The company, which was founded in Padrón, currently operates in Ames, where it moved after finding offices with a laboratory, better suited to its emerging needs. Binarial is a nonconformist company, constantly searching for new challenges, which it takes on with commitment and close collaboration between its different departments.
The first challenge it faced was the development of mobile robots, known as AMRs — Autonomous Mobile Robots — which move autonomously around factories to transport goods from one place to another. “After that, we started working with bimanual operators, and now we are working on humanoid robotics,” says Randulfe.
Binarial’s CEO explains that all this work falls under intelligent robotics: “They are robots that operate in a non-linear way. They make their own decisions and are capable of carrying out tasks that are not routine or standardized. All of this is encompassed within technologies for applying artificial intelligence to the real world. This is what is currently called Physical AI.”
“Our goal is to build machines that understand the physical world. All our lines of work converge on the same vision: taking artificial intelligence beyond the screen and turning it into robots and systems capable of perceiving, deciding and acting autonomously”
Rodrigo Randulfe, CEO of BINARIAL
The company is responsible for everything from the robot’s mechanical development and assembly to the creation of its heart or brain, which determine its thinking. This allows them to make the tasks that these androids can handle more flexible — even though people still tend to think of them as something from the future, when they are already part of the present.
“Our goal is to build machines that understand the physical world. All our lines of work converge on the same vision: taking artificial intelligence beyond the screen and turning it into robots and systems capable of perceiving, deciding and acting autonomously,” says Rodrigo Randulfe.
Binarial features several diverse solutions on its website which, in this way, converge on the same field: intelligent robotics. The company listens to its clients’ needs and makes robots act in a specific way according to what is required of them.
Randulfe explains that they operate as an engineering company offering “all kinds of solutions for industry” based on a high degree of technology. “The team we have at Binarial consists of engineers, mathematicians… people capable of tackling these types of situations,” explains the company’s CEO.
Binarial’s challenges: from the Navy to humanoids
Binarial has been awarded two strategic challenges from the Ministry of Defence within the framework of the Essential Elements of the Autonomous Ship project, known as EEBA. The validation, granted by the Spanish Navy, the Centre for the Development of Technology and Innovation (CDTI) and AINDEF, involves the direct application of its Physical Artificial Intelligence technology to the most demanding tactical defence environments.
One of them, Néboa, is being developed in consortium with Navantia and consists of the development of a decision-making system to guarantee 100% autonomous, passive and explainable maritime navigation. “In this type of architecture, environments are used where there is no GPS and satellite signal is denied. We use artificial intelligence algorithms and systems, as well as positioning systems, to guarantee missions without relying on satellites,” says Randulfe.
Tethra, in consortium with SATEC, is an advanced architecture for controlling swarms of autonomous drones or marine vessels. “We base it on fully decentralized networks, which allow small or large autonomous vessels to coordinate with each other and to generate a topological reorganization in the event of any loss or type of disconnection,” says Binarial’s CEO.
In this way, the vessels can regroup or patrol autonomously if a problem occurs, eliminating the vulnerability created by centralized control.
“By developing robotics-based technologies, from the software to the know-how, we generate internal competitiveness. We do not depend on external factors, and what we are generating is technological sovereignty”
Rodrigo Randulfe, CEO of BINARIAL
Binarial is working to complete both projects “as quickly as possible,” with its sights set on the end of 2026. “This is very important news because the application of dual-use technologies was part of the company’s strategic lines. It allows all the knowledge and development we have to be applied to a growing sector such as defence,” Randulfe says after the award.
“By developing robotics-based technologies, from the software to the know-how, we generate internal competitiveness. We do not depend on external factors, and what we are generating is technological sovereignty,” adds the CEO of this young company, for which this news has provided a major boost.
Beyond these two projects and the company’s day-to-day work, Binarial is working in the medium to long term on the manufacture and development of its own bipedal humanoids. “We are working on the technology needed to create the new humanoid ecosystem: robots with human-like characteristics that perform different tasks,” says Randulfe.
“We have very well-prepared people; there is a great deal of talent in Galicia and in the engineering schools here”
Rodrigo Randulfe, CEO of BINARIAL
These humanoids have applications in everyday industry, especially for repetitive or dangerous tasks. “We are developing and carrying out several proof-of-concept projects with some companies so that we can begin to see how we integrate this type of technology,” explains the company’s co-founder.
Three ambitious and exciting projects with which Binarial is bringing the future into the present. “We have very well-prepared people; there is a great deal of talent in Galicia and in the engineering schools here. This technology is what makes us get up every morning to keep fighting, so that we can have this type of technology developed by us,” states the company’s CEO.
The future of AI
News about the development of new technologies can sometimes feel overwhelming, or even frightening, and generate certain reservations. But nothing could be further from the truth. “Technological progress in itself is always a competitive advantage and also an element of social value,” says Rodrigo Randulfe, who notes that these advances are beneficial both in industry and in science.
“Europe’s industry has a problem with a shortage of personnel to carry out repetitive or dangerous physical tasks. This is where our technologies can bring enormous value: it is not about replacing people, but about making factories more competitive and generating high value-added jobs,” says Binarial’s CEO.
“Europe’s industry has a problem with a shortage of personnel to carry out repetitive or dangerous physical tasks. This is where our technologies can bring enormous value: it is not about replacing people, but about making factories more competitive and generating high value-added jobs”
Rodrigo Randulfe, CEO of BINARIAL
Artificial intelligence is one of the great unknowns, especially when it comes to its regulation. Rodrigo Randulfe explains that, in their case, they work with AI applied to the physical domain and that their major competitors, from the United States or countries in Asia, “are quite far ahead in this type of application of artificial intelligence and industry.”
“In Europe, what should be done first is to begin developing sustainable and, above all, proprietary technology, while regulating at the same time. Regulation must go hand in hand with the generation of knowledge; there should be consensus and a way to evolve and grow,” concludes the CEO of this company, which certainly knows a great deal about growth.