FORT Robotics acquires Mapless AI to expand teleop capabilities

FORT Robotics recently acquired Mapless AI, a Boston- and Pittsburgh-based developer of teleoperation and onboard active safety technology. FORT plans to add both of these capabilities to its Trust Platform. 

By integrating these technologies, FORT said it will expand its technology from safety-certified machine control to a comprehensive architecture for supervised autonomy. While FORT has traditionally worked with technology in industrial environments, Mapless AI brings experience in more unstructured settings, such as airports. 

“The Physical AI market is a multi-billion-dollar economic engine, but its full potential can only be unlocked if machines are trustworthy enough to operate in real-world human environments,” said Samuel Reeves, CEO of FORT Robotics. “The robotics industry is at a critical crossroads where impressive demos are everywhere, but scalability remains rare. Acquiring Mapless AI expands our platform to directly meet this vital need, allowing FORT to deliver the proactive safety frameworks our customers are asking for. We are building the foundational trust system to ensure that as robots become more autonomous, safety is an accelerator rather than a bottleneck.”

Founded in 2018, FORT Robotics provides a safety layer for physical AI in agriculture, construction, warehousing, and defense. Since it launched, FORT has secured 27 patents and deployed more than 19,000 units to a global base of over 600 customers.

FORT to adopt two technologies from Mapless AI

With the acquisition, FORT is adding two pieces of technology from Mapless AI to its platform:

• Human-in-the-Loop from Anywhere (remote teleoperation): The platform now enables remote teleoperation across long distances. This enables off-site specialists to monitor and operate vehicles or machine systems from anywhere. This capability addresses a primary request that FORT hears from enterprise fleet managers: the ability to maintain a reliable human-in-the-loop safety net for autonomous operations without placing workers in high-risk zones.
• Onboard Active Safety (Environmental Sensing): By adding onboard perception technology, FORT now enables machines to actively detect, anticipate, and respond to their environments in real time. This predictive approach allows autonomous vehicles to execute smart, real-time planning and contingency maneuvers.

By merging these capabilities, FORT said the acquisition transitions its platform into an intelligent, proactive system. With the technology, autonomous machines can communicate safely and actively read their environments, anticipate potential hazards, and execute real-time operational decisions on the fly, the company claimed.

A single off-site operator can safely monitor and intervene across multiple vehicles from anywhere. This completely decouples human workers from high-risk environments while keeping meaningful oversight intact.

“We founded Mapless to build the core safety layer robots need to operate effectively in complex, real-world environments. The reality is that for robots to work closely with humans and valuable infrastructure, they must be smart enough to understand and anticipate risk,” said Philipp Robbel, the co-founder of Mapless AI. “Joining the FORT family allows us to bring our safety-first vision to a much larger platform, accelerating the type of products that will define the next decade of industrial automation and physical AI.”