Cookeville firm designs robots to tackle big challenges

When Tennessee Valley Authority representatives saw climbing robot prototypes being developed at Tennessee Tech University in the late 1990s, they asked if it was possible to create a product that could inspect their coal-fired boiler plants.

Then-graduate student Jamie Beard and professor Stephen Canfield took on the project and developed a robotic crawler that climbed the 200-foot-high tanks and inspected their conditions.

As a result, workers who previously relied on harnesses or scaffolding to climb the tanks and wore protective clothing and respirators to protect against toxic environments and extreme temperatures could now examine plants by operating the robot from the ground. Time and expenses could be saved, and unnecessary risk to employees could be avoided.

In 2007, Beard and Canfield launched Cookeville-based Robotic Technologies of Tennessee. The product line has expanded beyond climbing robots and now includes automated welding robots. The company has developed partnerships with manufacturing technology company EWI, the National Shipbuilding Research Program, and the Department of the Navy Science and Technology, among others.

What has fueled interest in the company is its ability to bring the factory to the work site — energy plant, shipyard or oil field, for example — rather than bring the project to the factory.

"(In these) environments, you need to do work in the field, and traditional factory automation doesn't work," said Steve Glovsky, executive vice president of Robotic Technologies of Tennessee.

The company's mobile manufacturing platform allows companies to use the robots to cut, grind and weld industrial metals on site, saving workers from having to work up close to sparks, increasing productivity and reducing potential injury and the need for protective gear.

Robotic Technologies of Tennessee has relied on grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Shipbuilding Research Program and is now seeking $2 million in venture funding to boost production levels and build more demo units, Glovsky said.

Reach Jamie McGee at 615-259-8071 and on Twitter @JamieMcGee_.