Caterpillar has acquired selected assets and hired employees from Marble Robot, Inc.
Despite its name, Marble Robot is more in the self-driving vehicle space than little tin men.
Caterpillar has already done work on autonomous mining machinery and hopes the new team can help develop scalable solutions for wider applications.
“We’re excited to join the autonomy team at Caterpillar,” said Kevin Peterson, former Marble CEO, now Caterpillar technologist. “In many ways, this completes a full circle for me. I had the privilege of working with Caterpillar early in my career at Carnegie Mellon, where they sponsored the development of the first generation of self-driving vehicle software. Now, with the acquisition of the Marble team, together we will drive the next generation of autonomy solutions for Caterpillar customers in the construction, quarry, industrial and waste industries.”
Caterpillar chief technology officer Karl Weiss said: “Our customers need the best solutions for running an effective jobsite, with improved operator productivity, lower operating costs, and greater efficiency brought by autonomous solutions. That’s why we’re continuing to invest in the areas of automation, remote control and autonomy.”
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