Steel Collar Robotics and Aeronautics

One concierge, every front door

Steel Collar Robotics and Aeronautics is an independent dealer and a robotics research think tank. Our dealership arm sells robots and drones; our research arm ensures you have the best expertise to make your automation decisions. Both arms start with the same conversation, and there are four front doors: manufacturers on the ground, inspection and measurement in the air, satellite work in orbit, and the cities, counties and districts that buy robots for public work. Joe, Amelia, Katherine and Abe are four names for one very good AI. Each will tell you whether a robot is the answer, which class of machine fits, and what has to be true for the math to work, and each will tell you when the answer is no. When it is real, our human team takes over: confirming specifics with manufacturers, and confirming an integrator's or operator's interest and availability before any introduction.

A yellow six axis industrial robot in an integration cell

Joe

Robots on the ground

Palletizing, machine tending, welding, and the rest of the floor, backed by a matrix of 726 machines, from factory arms to patrol robots and floor scrubbers, and a bench of certified integrators. Named for Joseph Engelberger, who put the first industrial robot to work.

You are here

A survey drone hovering over a field at dusk

Amelia

Robots in the air

Drones for inspection, measurement and reach, from inside a boiler to open sky, with free and neutral introductions to aviation counsel when rules touch the mission. Named for Amelia Earhart.

Meet Amelia

The Hubble Space Telescope flying free against black space

Katherine

Robots in orbit

Satellite work end to end: manufacturing, buying, launch, servicing, recovery and the legal side. We find the specialists who already do it, confirm their interest, and make the introduction. Named for Katherine Johnson, whose math brought crews home.

Meet Katherine

The rules we work by

We will tell you when a robot is the wrong answer.

If your job runs half an hour a day, or the fix is a three thousand dollar conveyor, or your real bottleneck is upstream of this task, you will hear it here first, for free.

Every number is a range until an engineer verifies it.

Robots get bought with real money. We do not do fake precision, and we show every assumption behind every payback figure.

We never do the installation.

Cell design, guarding, risk assessment, and safety validation belong to independent certified integrators. We introduce you to ones who have built your application before.

We are a dealer, and we say so.

We carry multiple robot brands and we earn a margin when you buy. Because we carry many brands, our answer can be the one that actually fits, including none of the above.

How it works

1

Tell us the job.

Plain words. The concierge asks the questions a good applications engineer would ask: part weight, rate, shifts, space, power.

2

Get the read.

Automatable or not, what class of cell fits, an equipment range, an integration range, and payback math built from your own numbers with every assumption shown.

3

Choose your path.

See the configuration priced, or meet an integrator who has built this before. Or take the read and walk. It is yours either way.

Three things to do before anyone quotes you

Is my job automatable?

Seven questions an applications engineer asks first, scored the way our guides score them, with the read handed to Joe in one click.

Robot payback calculator

Simple payback, five-year net and the version where you were 30 percent too optimistic, from your numbers, not ours.

Robots side by side

Cross-brand pairs with the manufacturer-published figures in one table and a plain reading of what the differences mean on a floor.

Meet your second shift

Nobody wants the second shift.

You cannot hire for it, and you cannot grow without it. A steel collar worker takes the shift you cannot staff: palletizing, machine tending, welding, packing, the repetitive jobs your best people should not be stuck doing. This is not about replacing your crew. It is about the three open reqs you have not filled in a year.

Shops like yours, jobs like yours

Documented deployments from real manufacturers: what got automated, with what equipment, at what published cost and payback. Vendor claims labeled as vendor claims, so you know which numbers to trust. Read the casebook, or ask Joe for examples in your industry.

Browse the casebook

Look up your actual job

The process library covers specific jobs rather than job families: palletizing bags, denesting trays, deburring castings, destacking sheet, checking a part is present. Each one tells you when it is worth automating and, just as often, when it is not.

Browse the process library

Notes from the concierge

The arguments we make to customers before they spend money, and the stories of what changed when they listened. Size for peak and not average. The gripper is the project. Why we will not tell you a cell is safe. The back that stops hurting.