The Intel RealSense D421 Depth Module. | Credit score: Intel
We have been just a little stunned in mid-September 2024 with the launch of the entry-level Intel RealSense Depth Module D421. With the latest monetary turmoil and modifications on the firm, there was uncertainty whether or not Intel would proceed to spend money on the product line.
Properly, right now The Robotic Report realized extra in regards to the plans for the road of depth cameras. Intel is spinning out RealSense as an impartial firm. Intel stated this will likely be completed within the first half of 2025, with the brand new enterprise being an Intel Capital portfolio firm.
“After ten years of incubation, Intel is unleashing the potential of the Intel RealSense pc vision-AI portfolio in a standalone ICAP portfolio firm by the primary half of 2025,” Intel stated in an announcement to The Robotic Report. “We’re dedicated to making sure a easy transition for our prospects and proceed to offer assist all through the method.”
That is all we all know in the mean time. We now have reached out to Intel to study extra and can go alongside extra info when it turns into out there.
RealSense has all the time been a small a part of Intel’s enterprise. It possible benefitted from the monetary stability and intensive sources of Intel. Working inside a tech big’s ecosystem offered a security web for R&D, in addition to entry to an enormous community of trade companions.
Will all that maintain true as a standalone firm? Will the brand new RealSense want to boost exterior funding?
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New chapter for RealSense
Intel RealSense depth cameras are a well-liked selection for builders of cellular robots and industrial pick-and-place robots. Intel particulars some robotics prospects on its web site. One instance is ANYbotics‘ ANYmal quadruped. Based on Intel, every ANYmal robotic has six Intel RealSense D435 modules that work collectively to create an elevation map that helps the robotic navigate round a website and traverse troublesome terrain, together with climbing stairs.
How will this new independence have an effect on the arrogance of its present prospects? We’ll have to attend and see.
We do know that is yet one more new chapter in what’s been a three-and-a-half-year saga stuffed with twists and turns. In August 2021, Intel surprised the robotics trade by asserting it was shutting down RealSense to give attention to core companies. This even caught inside RealSense leaders abruptly on the time.
Nonetheless, Intel rapidly reversed course, opting to maintain RealSense alive however with a diminished lineup.
The robotics trade has lengthy been using a curler coaster when looking for low-cost, high-quality depth sensing. With RealSense spinning out as a standalone firm, this narrative takes one other shocking flip. RealSense is free of Intel’s restructuring priorities, however independence will most actually introduce new challenges.
This actually isn’t Intel’s first time spinning off an organization. In December 2024, after going through declining income, Intel introduced it will spin off its foundry enterprise. Mobileye, an autonomous car developer, spun off from Intel in October 2022. Intel acquired Mobileye in 2017 for $15.3 billion, and on the time it was the most important acquisition ever of an Israeli firm. Mobileye was based in 1999.
Intel started producing depth-sensing merchandise underneath its Perceptual Computing division in 2013. Intel rebranded this group as Intel RealSense in 2014.
