Energid Technologies Corp., a small and relatively young company, is well known to the robotics community, having partnered with a large number of commercial and academic entities on a wide variety of projects. And any of Energid’s four areas of focus—machine vision, robotics software, visualization, and simulation—would serve as the foundation for a much larger company. However, it is Energid’s Actin robotics toolkit that is the crown jewel of the company and the basis for many of its wide-ranging contracts and partnerships. It is also a potential enabler for new robotics applications.

Founded in 2001 with approximately 20 employees today, Energid Technologies describes itself as a products and services company. Partners range from robotics hardware platform providers iRobot, Foster-Miller, and MobileRobots, to software suppliers such as Solidworks and Microsoft’s robotics group. The company is also a member of the Robotics Technology Consortium and Massachusetts Robotics Cluster, and is an exhibitor at academic and industry events. Company representatives are frequent speakers at these events.

Energid has applied its expertise in the company’s four focus areas across both the industrial and service robotics sectors (commercial, civil, and military service robots), along with nonrobotics market segments. The types of projects the company is involved with vary greatly, ranging from human gesture recognition and surgery training to robotic citrus harvesting and lunar excavator validation.

Some small companies, particularly services companies, spread themselves thin chasing contracts and grants. However, that is not the case for Energid. When Energid’s mélange of product and services offerings is examined, it becomes clear that many of the programs and contract awards include some mention of the company’s flagship product: the Actin Robotics Toolkit.