Mantis Robotics is building MR-1 safety functions into fenceless workcells

Mantis Robotics announced MR-1 safety certification to ISO 10218 and ISO 13849 on February 24, 2026, turning the company's fenceless robot-arm thesis into a certification event. The commercial claim is clear: high-speed industrial arms normally need cages or separation, while slow collaborative arms can limit throughput. Mantis is trying to operate in the space between those two options.

Amazon previously identified Mantis as a San Francisco company founded in 2020 and developing a tactile robotic arm that uses sensor technology to work alongside people. The company appeared in the first round of Amazon's $1 billion Industrial Innovation Fund, which focused on safety, logistics, fulfillment operations, and robotics that can coexist with people.

Mantis lists investors including Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund, Emerald, GHC Partners, and Sabanci Ventures, with operating locations in Pleasanton, Leuven, and New Taipei City. CEO Gerry Vannuffelen leads the company, and MR-1 is built around fenceless industrial workcells where the robot changes behavior around people and objects.

The certified layer includes 47 embedded safety functions inside the MR-1 architecture. Mantis SafetyCore uses range-based object detection through STAR and changes robot speed or behavior around dynamic objects. MR-1 reaches a maximum linear speed of 10 meters per second, and Mantis says the arm uses the same footprint as a human operator while reducing required footprint by 80%.

The competitive field includes Universal Robots, FANUC CRX, ABB GoFa, KUKA collaborative arms, safety-scanner based workcells from SICK and Pilz ecosystems, and conventional caged industrial robots. Mantis's distinction is certified dynamic safety around a faster industrial arm, aimed at workcells where factories want throughput without fencing away valuable floor space.

Public material does not disclose customer cell count, production uptime, cycle-time improvement, safety incident record, integration cost, or MR-1 deployment economics. The strategic test is whether certification converts fenceless operation from a demo claim into a factory buying argument. If MR-1 can maintain speed while safely adapting around people, Mantis becomes a safety-controlled workcell platform for manufacturers that need more flexible floor layouts.

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