GeckoSystems have taken another critical step to make the CareBot, elder care capable personal robot, available to the consumer market. GeckoSystems is in the process of negotiating initial contract manufacturing quotes on its primary robot controller board the GeckoSPIO.

Sparton Medical’s Electronic Manufacturing Services (EMS) offers a new prototyping service for electronic assemblies that provides customers several benefits, including time and cost savings, with increased flexibility.

Sparton Medical’s services include a stand-alone, dedicated pilot line and engineering lab that offers a means of manufacturing and testing multiple aspects of a customer’s existing or newly designed electronic assemblies before it is mass produced.

Sparton’s new capabilities are compatible with Proof-of-Concept (PoC) prototypes, where product design is still evolving, and Production-Ready (PR) prototypes, where final testing or certifications are the last step prior to full production.

Mark Peele, vice president of R&D at GeckoSystems, said: “After returning from my visit to Sparton Medical in Strongsville, OH, early February of this year, we realized their focus was on high end medical diagnostic equipment with relatively small batch sizes which enables them to readily produce our mobile service robots for professional healthcare.

“Since we consider Sparton to be a first tier contract manufacturer, we are now pleased to have toured their high volume manufacturing facility in FL for production of our first consumer product, the CareBot. Sparton EMS is intimately connected to its Pacific Rim manufacturing plant in Vietnam. With low cost touch labor available to us in Asia by way of Sparton EMS, we are very excited about our recent review of their facility.”