Cerulion is middleware for robots - it abstracts away the process of interfacing with the motors and sensors. Visualization, data logging, and control can be easily achieved in a no-code GUI.
Lakshay is the cofounder/CEO of robotics middleware startup Cerulion. Prior to this, he studied computer engineering, astrophysics and robotics at the University of Pennsylvania, and researched robot motion planners at MIT.
I'm the cofounder of Cerulion along with Lakshay Sharma. Cerulion is a software interface and abstraction layer to make controlling, debugging, and visualizing commercial robots accessible to everyone. Prior to YC, I studied mechanical engineering at the University of Notre Dame and MIT, specializing in robotics, optimal control, and reinforcement learning for legged platforms.
Robots are expensive and hard to develop/debug. Cerulion solves the robot tooling problem to cut down development times by up to 10x.
The incredibly high capital costs required for robotics, combined with the inherently non-deterministic nature of embodied intelligence, result in an unpredictable system where even attempts, let alone failures, are cost-prohibitive.
Robots are expensive and hard.
And yet, despite time on hardware being such a precious resource, roboticists today are absolutely wasting 90% of it fighting against unoptimized tooling. Some common complaints are:
And the list goes on and on.
Robot tooling today is broken. Unacceptably so.
As robotics PhD students at MIT, Lakshay and Se Hwan have gathered years of experience (and frustration) working on robots, and want to see a world where you can take robot reliability for granted.
Have experience with ROS or any other robot middleware? Did we miss something above that you really need? Send us a message at founders@cerulion.com!
We always love (and are happy to provide) warm intros to people working on robots and automation.
And of course, if you need help with your robot system, or are curious about any of this, we're happy to chat!
P.S. — Please star our GitHub repo!