In 2022, three friends passionate about robotics and technology became partners in their own company in Padrón, with autonomous and intelligent robotics as their field of work. This was the origin of Binarial, which four years later has 15 employees at its headquarters in Ames, has its own products manufactured locally on the market, exceeds one million euros in annual turnover, and now counts the Spanish Navy among its clients. Rodrigo Randulfe (Pontecesures, 1982) is its CEO.
—What is your field of work?
—We work with AMRs, autonomous mobile robots: robots that move around factories, perform recognition and inspection tasks, transport goods through factories or environments such as hospitals, and are capable of interpreting the best routes and avoiding obstacles. We also work with robots in supermarkets for stock management on shelves. We are currently also working with humanoid bimanual operator robots, which is the next leap the company will make next year, aimed at the industrial sector: positioning parts, placing components… enabling a robot to replace a task performed by a person. This is what is known as Physical AI: bringing artificial intelligence into the physical world so that robots do not perform linear work, but can make decisions in response to unexpected circumstances.
—Who are Binarial’s main clients?
—We work quite extensively in the automotive sector, in the Vigo area; also in the food industry and in the retail sector. Most of them are in Galicia, as well as in other parts of Spain, and we are beginning to operate in Portugal and Germany.
—Defence has just awarded you two strategic challenges in the Essential Elements of the Autonomous Ship project. What does this mean?
—As a dual-use technology, robotics can also be applied to defence. It is a major milestone that the Navy has placed its trust in technology developed in Galicia by local engineers. We were interested in positioning ourselves in dual-use technologies and applied for this call, in which we were selected as awardees.
—What will you do in this area?
—There are two projects. In Néboa, together with Navantia, we will work on a decision-making system for 100% autonomous maritime navigation. The objective is that, when there is no GPS satellite signal, the vessel will be able to identify its position using key reference points through vision systems combined with artificial intelligence, allowing it to know where it is. The other project is Tethra, with Satec: the idea is to deploy small autonomous vessels and make decisions regarding their swarm, for tasks such as surrounding a ship or autonomously exploring an area, without colliding or interfering with one another. It will be a decentralized brain to manage the group of small autonomous vessels. We are working on these projects until the end of the year.
—What are your company’s future prospects?
—To continue along the path we began in 2022, developing our own technology and intelligent robotics, with incursions into the military field such as this one, and to work with humanoid bimanual robotics. Our idea is to present this year a multipurpose bipedal humanoid robot, entirely Galician, developed and manufactured here, capable of performing multiple tasks across various industries.