Palladyne AI Corp. 10-K

Item 1. Business. The following discussion should be read in conjunction with the information about us contained elsewhere in this Report, including the information set forth in our consolidated financial statements and the related notes. Some of the information contained in this section or set forth elsewhere in this Report, including information with respect to our plans and strategy for our business, includes forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. You should read Part I Item 1A Risk Factors and the section titled “Special Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements” for a discussion of important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the results described in or implied by the forward-looking statements contained in the following discussion. Overview We are a technology leader in industrial highly- dexterous mobile robotic systems for use in dynamic environments. Our mission is to save lives and prevent injury while helping humans accomplish more than ever before. To achieve this mission, we design our robotic systems to augment human performance by combining human intelligence, instinct and judgment with the strength, endurance and precision of machines to enhance human safety and productivity. We expect our products to benefit markets in which people perform physically demanding or hazardous tasks, such as aerospace, automotive, aviation, construction, defense, distribution and warehousing for ecommerce and other industries, industrial manufacturing, maritime, military and oil and gas. Our technologically-advanced line of products augments, rather than replaces, humans. We believe we are in the midst of a fourth industrial revolution, or Industry 4.0, with the application of modern smart technology to traditional manufacturing and industrial practices. Robotically augmenting the workforce is expected to increase productivity, reduce costly occupational injuries, minimize production downtime by facilitating fast implementation and changeovers, enhance agile manufacturing, broaden the pool of available employees by equalizing workers’ physical capabilities and potentially increase the longevity of an aging workforce. For example, we expect that our Guardian XO and Guardian XT will each allow users to safely lift a load of up to 200 lbs. (compared to the 35 to 40 lbs. limits typically recommended by OSHA guidelines) with small effort in a wide range of tasks. Based on use cases that we have explored with potential customers, we estimate that individuals using our Guardian XO unit can improve productivity by three or more times. Our products are designed to serve as a key element of an Industry 4.0-ready workforce. Our engineering and design efforts are led by a highly experienced robotics team, with some members of our core engineering team working together for over 20 years. We also benefit from more than $300 million in research and development investment in our proprietary technologies and an extensive patent portfolio. We have received several awards and recognitions, including recognition as the 2020 Dexterous Robots & Exoskeletons Company of the Year by Frost & Sullivan and the following recognitions for the Guardian XO: 2021 IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Award for Product Innovation, selection as one of the Best Inventions of 2020, Productivity by Time Magazine, 2020 Finalist for the Innovation by Design Awards by Fast Company and 2020 Winner of the Commercial Technologies for Maintenance Activities (CTMA) Technology Competition by the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences. The Guardian XO also received many top honors at CES in 2020, including being named “Top Emerging Technology” by Digital Trends, “Best Robot” by PCMag.com and “The Best Ideas and Products of CES” by VentureBeat, and was recognized by WIRED Magazine as being one of the smartest technologies on the show floor. We plan to offer our Guardian XO and Guardian XT robotic systems primarily through a Robot-as-a-Service, or RaaS, subscription-based service model that will give customers the convenience of included on-going maintenance, support, remote monitoring and software upgrades in addition to use of our products. We believe the RaaS subscription model will be attractive to our customers and accelerate market adoption of our robotic systems because it will lower the upfront costs of deployment, shift capital expenditures to operating expenditures, allow customers to more nimbly scale deployments up or down in response to market conditions, and make our products more accessible to customers of all sizes. History and Corporate Information Sarcos is the result of a decades-long effort in research and development of highly-dexterous robotic systems. Our original predecessor was spun-out of the University of Utah in 1983. In 2007, our predecessor was acquired by Raytheon and was operated until 2014 as a division of Raytheon known as Raytheon Sarcos. During this period, Raytheon Sarcos was focused primarily on developing cutting-edge technologies for use by U.S. governmental agencies. In December 2014, the assets of Raytheon Sarcos were acquired by a consortium led by the former Raytheon Sarcos President and our current Chief Innovation Officer Dr. Fraser Smith and technology and telecom entrepreneur Benjamin Wolff, our former CEO and current Executive Chairman of the Board. This acquisition was the basis for the establishment of Old Sarcos, which was incorporated in Utah in February 2015. On September 24, 2021, we completed the Business Combination whereby Old Sarcos became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Rotor and Rotor changed its name to Sarcos Technology and Robotics Corporation. 6 Our principal executive offices are located at 650 South 500 West, Suite 150, Salt Lake City, Utah, 84101. Our telephone number is 888-927-7296. Company Website We maintain a company website with the address www.sarcos.com. We are not including the information contained on our website as a part of, or incorporating it by reference into, this Annual Report on Form 10-K. We make available free of charge through the www.sarcos.com website our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K, and amendments to these reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Exchange Act, as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such material with, or furnish such material to, the SEC. These reports and other information are also available, free of charge, at www.sec.gov. In addition, our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics is available through the www.sarcos.com website and any amendments to or waivers of the Code of Conduct will be disclosed on that website. Industry Background Evolution of Robotics Industrial robots have been commercially available and used in industrial and manufacturing environments since the 1970s. They are typically large, stationary machines designed to automate repetitive tasks that require speed and strength greater than what a human can accomplish. For manufacturing tasks, industrial robots generally execute plans by rote programming - functions that are programmed in advance by a human engineer. Over time, industrial robots have become more sophisticated. Industrial robots have seen widespread adoption in a host of applications and have gained acceptance across many industries. However, these heavy industrial robots generally require workspaces to be configured around them and large safety cages to protect workers on the factory floor, consume significant amounts of power and space, are substantially less agile and versatile than humans and are difficult and costly to move from one location to another. These characteristics typically limit the number of use cases to highly routinized tasks. As a result, two new categories of products, called collaborative robots, or cobots, and automated mobile robots, or AMRs, are gaining market traction. Advances in tangential technologies such as grippers, vision systems, cloud computing, augmented reality, or AR, and artificial intelligence, or AI, have led to the broader adoption and commercial viability of cobots and AMRs. These advances have offered increased safety and operational flexibility, allowing robots to be deployed safely alongside humans, disrupting the historical industrial robotics industry and labor markets while offering more advanced capabilities than earlier models. However, neither cobots nor AMRs are designed to perform tasks in dynamic or unstructured environments. As with their predecessors, they are tools of automation, designed and programmed to perform routinized tasks. They also generally lack human-like dexterity and the ability to lift and manipulate heavy objects. Evolution of Wearable Robotics Robotic exoskeletons are not a new concept. They have been a staple of science fiction for decades. General Electric was the first to try to move the concept from fiction to reality with its experimental Hardiman exoskeleton debuting in the 1960s. Early versions of full-body, powered exoskeletons were reliant on hydraulic power supplies connected via a cord or hydraulic lines, which greatly restricted the mobility and the number of use cases. They also consumed large amounts of power, making it impractical to use these early versions on an untethered basis. More recently, partial-body, powered exoskeletons have primarily been deployed for healthcare and rehabilitative uses. Partial-body, non-powered devices (called passive exoskeletons) have been adopted for passive support functions such as assisting parts-assembly workers when performing repetitive, overhead manual labor. Unlike these commercial predecessors, powered, full-body industrial robotic exoskeletons will combine human intelligence and mobility with the strength, endurance and precision of traditional industrial robots. These powered exoskeletons will allow humans and robots to operate as a single unit, substantially augmenting a typical workers’ capabilities while reducing the risk of occupational injuries. Traditional Labor Market Historically, many industries have been dependent on manual human labor and heavy equipment (such as forklifts or cranes) for numerous physically demanding tasks. Human limitations and equipment inflexibility, such as size constraints and power needs, create costly inefficiencies. Relying on human labor sources also has considerable financial and safety costs, which impact the business and the labor pool alike. Workplace accidents and fatigue caused by heavy lifting and working from heights have significant detrimental effects on a workforce’s productivity and can cause extensive bodily harm to human workers. 7 Challenges to the labor market include: • Rising average age of the labor force in developed nations. According to European Commission data: as of 2015, 22% of the United States labor force was over the age of 65; by 2050, that percentage is expected to rise to 36%; worldwide, as of 2015, 13% of the labor force was over the age of 65; and, by 2050, that number is expected to rise to 25%. • Shrinking pool of manual laborers . Long-term trends suggest workers may avoid manual labor due to occupational hazards, resulting in labor shortages. Moreover, although the long-term effects of COVID-19 are largely unknown, there is a chance they will further negatively affect the availability of the labor force. According to an industry study, there will be a shortage of approximately 2.4 million workers in U.S. manufacturing by 2028 resulting in a $2.5 trillion negative impact on the U.S. economy. • Costs associated with physically taxing occupations . In the United States alone, (a) the Spine Research Institute and OSHA report that healthcare costs, lost wages and decreased productivity associated with back injuries cost approximately $100 billion annually, and (b) according to a 2018 U.S. Bone and Joint Initiative study, back pain accounts for an estimated more than 264 million lost workdays a year, the equivalent of approximately two workdays for every full-time worker in the country. Falls from heights are the fourth most disabling and costly injury after overexertion and falling from the same level according to the 2019 Liberty Mutual Workplace Safety Index. OSHA reports that approximately $136 billion is lost annually due to worker fatigue. • Equipment that is not ideal for complex environments or the task at hand . Common equipment, such as cranes, forklifts and lift-assist devices often lack the flexibility needed to address the dynamic needs of a worksite. Larger equipment sizes and inflexibility in the range of tasks they can perform often do little to address some of the common issues faced by the labor force. The Sarcos Solution We design our robotic systems to augment human performance by combining human intelligence, instinct and judgment with the strength, endurance and precision of machines to enhance human safety and productivity while addressing many of the labor market’s challenges mentioned above. We expect our products to benefit markets in which people perform physically demanding or hazardous tasks, such as aerospace, automotive, aviation, construction, defense, distribution and warehousing for ecommerce and other industries, industrial manufacturing, maritime, military and oil and gas. The technological advancements provided by our industrial highly-dexterous mobile robotic systems can have broad-ranging implications and benefits to workers and employers alike. Based on our testing and initial trials, we expect each unit to increase productivity across a variety of use cases, while significantly reducing the risk, and associated costs, of employee injuries. Our technological innovations, coupled with significant improvements in the size, weight, power, performance and cost of components, have enabled us to advance the development of our robotic systems. We believe that our products sufficiently address the limitations historically faced by the robotics industry as discussed above to be commercially viable and expect to commence initial production of commercial units of the Guardian XO and Guardian XT by the end of 2022 for delivery to customers in early 2023. Our technological innovations include or will include: • Kinematic Equivalency . Our robotic systems are modeled after human movement and designed for a robot-to-human-body ratio with intuitive controls and integrated feedback. 8 • Teleoperated . Our teleoperated units, the Guardian XT and Guardian GT, are expected to provide high fidelity force feedback to enable precision work through a platform-agnostic design for diverse environments. • Human-like Dexterity with Augmented Strength . We are designing our robotic systems to provide human-like ability to operate in dynamic, unstructured environments and augment humans with the strength, stamina, precision and speed of robotics. • Energetic Autonomy (untethered, battery-powered) . We expect that our products will offer reduced power consumption via optimized power utilization. • Safety . Our robotic systems are being developed to include advanced controls and comprehensive system recovery to increase their safety. We believe the primary drivers towards the adoption of our products include: • Increased productivity gained through increased strength and endurance, and reduced errors caused by worker fatigue. • Reduced costly occupational injuries, days missed and medical or legal expenses. • Ability to hire employees who would otherwise have been physically unable to perform the required tasks. • Potential to extend the number of years that aging workers can continue to perform physically demanding work. • Compatibility of objectives between employers and employees because our products are intended to empower, not replace, the labor force and enhance employee safety while reducing employer costs. • Limited production downtime as a result of fast implementation and changeovers. Our Product Platforms We expect to offer a range of robotic systems that draw on our intellectual property, years of expertise, and innovative core technologies. Guardian XO The Guardian XO is a full-body powered exoskeleton designed to augment user strength, endurance and precision without materially restricting freedom of movement. We expect that the Guardian XO will enable the user to safely lift a load of up to 200 lbs. with small effort in a wide range of use cases and industrial processes, significantly increasing a user's lift capability beyond the 35-40 lbs. typically recommended by OSHA. The unit’s advanced sensing and control system is designed to provide both responsiveness and fluidity of movement, making it user-friendly and intuitive to operate. The Guardian XO is intended to enhance productivity, mitigate worker fatigue, reduce the risk of workplace injuries and democratize the labor force by augmenting the capabilities of individuals otherwise physically unable to perform the required tasks. We believe the Guardian XO has the potential to revolutionize the way work gets done in industry sectors such as aerospace, automotive, aviation, construction, defense, distribution and warehousing for ecommerce and other industries, industrial manufacturing, maritime, military and oil and gas. According to initial customer testing feedback, the Guardian XO can increase a worker’s productivity by three or more times. We believe the following capabilities will be required for initial market acceptance of the Guardian XO, and we intend to include them in our initial commercial units: • Added Strength and Endurance . The exoskeleton is expected to carry a maximum load of up to 200 lbs., while offloading the unit’s weight and the weight of the load being carried. It is also designed to enable a smooth lifting motion by dynamically compensating for gravity and inertia for up to 100 lbs. per arm (or 50 lbs. per arm when lifting at full extension). • Battery-powered for Mobile Performance and Near-continuous Use . The Guardian XO will be powered by onboard hot-swappable batteries intended to provide near-continuous operation. Additionally, the XO Pod docking station is expected to facilitate battery charging, donning and doffing of the unit and data management. 9 • Sensors and Advanced Control Systems for Enhanced Maneuverability and Mobility . Integrated sensors in the Guardian XO are expected to enable the unit’s advanced controls system to detect movement (position, force, angular rate, orientation, torque and speed) in milliseconds to eliminate perceived latency. Maneuverability and mobility are intended to be provided through gravity compensation, which will cause the robot to feel almost weightless to the user, and 24 motorized joints, or degrees of freedom, which will allow the user to move freely and naturally in unstructured environments. The Guardian XO is also expected to include a “hands-free” mode in which the user can lock the suit’s arms while carrying a heavy load and simultaneously complete dexterous tasks requiring human hands. Each unit will be equipped with a user-friendly control interface for user controls and diagnostics notification display. • Ergonomic, Safety-first Features for User Comfort and Injury Prevention . We are designing the Guardian XO to include important safety features and accommodate customer-specialized protective gear and fall-prevention devices. In the event of a sudden power loss, redundant hardware and software are expected to enable “passive braking” to prevent user injury. In addition, the units are expected to include a highly responsive control system to enable the user to execute fall-prevention motions such as stumble-recovery. We anticipate that users will be able to don and doff units without assistance in less than 30 seconds, with additional provisions for sudden egress. We expect the Guardian XO to have a six-year service life (which we expect will involve shorter periods at different customers over that six-year period as initial customers upgrade to newer versions), with refurbishment after three years in service. We expect to commence initial production of commercial units of the Guardian XO by the end of 2022 for delivery to customers in early 2023. Guardian XT The Guardian XT is designed to be a highly-dexterous teleoperated, mobile robotic system that performs intricate, and sometimes dangerous, tasks that require human-like dexterity. Based on the upper body of the Guardian XO, the Guardian XT is designed to be a one- or two-armed system that is platform-agnostic and attachable to various mobile bases. We expect that the two-armed Guardian XT system will be able to lift and manipulate up to 200 lbs. and accomplish precision tasks under various conditions, including at height. The Guardian XT will be controlled via a wearable input device and a head-mounted display worn by the user to guide the robotic system’s arm movements in its workspace. Users will be able to control the unit by utilizing their natural movement, reflexes, instincts and judgment to perform complex and precise tasks in unstructured, often hazardous environments both indoors and outdoors, all while keeping the user at a safe distance. The Guardian XT is designed to provide several efficiency benefits through its remote lifting and dexterous manipulation capabilities. For an at-height powerline maintenance task, for example, one of our potential customers concluded, based on their initial use of one of our early prototypes, that the Guardian XT has the ability to reduce the size of a crew by 50% and complete tasks 20% faster. In addition, the Guardian XT is able to mitigate hazardous work condition risks including falling from height and worker fatigue due to repetitive motion tasks at-height. We believe the Guardian XT will be capable of reducing both direct and indirect costs associated with at-height and other hazardous work, including insurance premiums, safety crew costs, hazard-pay and more. We believe the following capabilities will be required for initial market acceptance of the Guardian XT and we intend to include them in our initial commercial units: • Tremendous Dexterity from a Distance . The Guardian XT’s teleoperation system is designed to provide force feedback and allow for the tremendous precision and control necessary to perform dexterous tasks and manipulate off-the-shelf and user-specified trade tools. • Base and Platform Agnostic . We expect the Guardian XT to be platform-agnostic and attach to various mobile or fixed bases, including wheeled or tracked vehicles such as boom lifts, scissor lifts and bucket trucks, to address construction, maintenance, installation, assembly and logistics needs. • Mixed Reality . The Guardian XT can move users out of harms' way by allowing the remote operation of the robotic system leveraging mixed reality technologies. The user can be safe inside or beside the Guardian XT by utilizing mixed reality systems integrated with the Guardian XT. In the future, this will also allow partners to have experts in remote locations provide training and teleoperations. 10 • Task Specific Autonomy . Leveraging artificial intelligence, the Guardian XT will provide users with the ability to set autonomous tasks in undefined areas. This includes the ability to set an area where a task, such as painting, sandblasting or assembly, can be performed after being trained by the remote user. The Guardian XT is expected to have a six-year service life (which we expect will involve shorter periods at different customers over that six-year period as initial customers upgrade to newer versions), with refurbishment after three years in service. We are also developing a variant of the Guardian XT for the U.S. military, the Guardian DX, for defense logistics and maintenance applications. We expect to commence initial production of commercial units of the Guardian XT by the end of 2022 for delivery to customers in early 2023. Guardian GT The Guardian GT is a custom product designed to be similar to the Guardian XT, but much larger in size. We expect it to be a teleoperated, force-multiplying robotic system that amplifies human strength and replicates human dexterity, while keeping the user at a safe distance. The robot’s highly-dexterous 7-foot long arms will have the ability to lift up to 500 lbs. each and mount on a variety of mobile bases, allowing the user to complete hazardous tasks such as decommissioning, public safety, disaster recovery, construction, ship building and maintenance and repair activities. We expect future development and production of the Guardian GT to be on a bespoke basis in collaboration with each customer desiring the product. CYTAR We have established our Cybernetic Training for Autonomous Robots, or CYTAR, program, with initial funding from the U.S. Airforce, to build on our existing Guardian XO and Guardian XT technology roadmap to develop trainable and semi-autonomous industrial highly-dexterous mobile robotic systems. Fueled by the belief that a “human-in-the-loop” approach delivers the optimal flexibility needed for complex tasks and dynamic environments in which robotic systems will need to interact, through our CYTAR program we intend to build upon our Guardian XO and Guardian XT technology using advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning as appropriate to allow users to effectively and rapidly teach robotic systems to perform complex tasks. We expect the CYTAR platform to use inputs gathered from a human user wearing a kinematically equivalent controller to teach robotic systems to perform tasks in unstructured, dynamic and uncertain environments. These inputs will be used to generate machine learning control policies that can be replicated and repeated with variations in the complexity and duration of tasks. Additionally, the CYTAR program is expected to offer a fleet-accessible database of successful task completion strategies to scale teaching across numerous robotic systems saving time and resources. While we have begun efforts to develop the CYTAR solution, it is in its early stages and we do not expect to produce commercial CYTAR products for the foreseeable future . Guardian S The Guardian S is a remote-controlled visual inspection and surveillance robotic system that can traverse challenging terrain and facilitate two-way, real-time video, voice and data communication. The man-portable robot is controlled via an easy-to-use, ruggedized tablet, helping keep the user at a safe distance. The system’s two-way communication facilitates video, sensor and still-image data capture by the Guardian S, allowing users to gain vital first-look and situational awareness data of the inspection target before a human-based inspection is required. The Guardian S is small, lightweight and deployable in less than 2 minutes. The robotic system’s ability to traverse difficult terrain and climb ferromagnetic surfaces makes it ideally suited for commercial, industrial, public safety and defense applications. We believe the following to be the key capabilities of the Guardian S: • Multi-Purpose Mobile IoT Platform . The Guardian S includes a built-in sensor module that gathers real-time information and has the flexibility to add task-specific sensors via its payload bracket. Additionally, the Guardian S is capable of transporting a 10-pound sensor payload while traversing a horizontal surface. • Two-Way, Real-Time Video, Voice and Data Communication . The Guardian S includes enhanced Wi-Fi and two-way radio connection between the user control unit and the robotic system. It also comes with built-in LTE capability (at 700 MHz operation) for cloud-based services. Audio and video are encrypted using 256-bit AES encryption. 11 • All-Terrain, State-of-the-Art Visual Surveillance . The Guardian S is capable of traversing challenging terrain, including stairs, pipes, tanks, culverts, and vertical ferromagnetic surfaces, and is IP65-rated to be dustproof and water protected. The unit’s slim form factor enables access to confined spaces, beginning with seven inch diameter openings. The Guardian S provides high-resolution visual inspection enabled by six 4k cameras with digital zoom and autofocus, providing 360-degree video coverage with both daytime and nighttime vision. Surveillance capabilities last up to 12 hours of stationary surveillance time or a three-mile mobile inspection travel range. The Guardian S robot was rolled out commercially in 2018 and is available today as a one-time upfront equipment purchase. It was the first robotic system to be commercialized by Sarcos and has been purchased by both industrial and defense customers. We do not expect the Guardian S to comprise a material part of our revenues after we release our commercial Guardian XO and Guardian XT products. Market Opportunity We expect to offer the Guardian XO and Guardian XT primarily through the RaaS subscription model, which we believe will promote customer adoption. We believe that our products will be well received by our potential customers, as well as the labor force and labor unions. We believe the total addressable market, or TAM, for our robotic systems is large and mostly unpenetrated. We estimate that the TAM for our products was approximately $147 billion in 2020 and will grow to approximately $165 billion in 2026. Our TAM is driven by the total number of workers in the occupations we expect to be candidates for adoption of the Guardian XO and Guardian XT and assumes that one in ten workers would adopt a unit. Our assumptions regarding the number of workers in each occupation is based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or BLS, and our forecast assumes that the TAM would grow at the same rate as GDP, estimated to be 2% per year. In addition, we believe that our serviceable obtainable market, or SOM, calculated to be initially 10% of our TAM, was $14.7 billion as of 2020 and will grow to $24.8 billion as of 2026, with the SOM as a percentage of TAM gradually increasing year by year to a 15% adoption rate as of 2026. Our SOM is estimated based on the expected technology adoption life cycle of our products. We assume that our initial customer base will be comprised of innovators and early adopters in the industries we are targeting. Following successful deployment with these early adopters, we believe that there will be many potential customers that are fast followers. We believe our estimated SOM is based on reasonable assumptions given our technology’s leadership position in the category of industrial highly-dexterous mobile robotic systems, the lack of competitive products in this new category and our interactions with leading industrial companies across a number of verticals. However, it is possible that these assumptions will prove incorrect, and, as a result, our SOM could be significantly less than our estimates or take longer to be realized. See Part I Item 1A Risk Factors - “ Our operating and financial projections rely on management assumptions and analyses. If these assumptions or analyses prove to be incorrect, our actual operating results may be materially different from our forecasted results .” Growth Strategy The key elements of our growth strategy include: Continue to Develop our Robotic Systems We will continue to develop our robotic systems, in particular in preparation for the commercial launch of the Guardian XO and Guardian XT. As mentioned above, we currently expect to commence initial production of commercial units of these products by the end of 2022 for delivery to customers in early 2023. However, such timeline may be delayed, including due to challenges in recruiting skilled employees, difficulties in securing components and materials, development delays, difficulties relating to manufacturing of the units and other factors. See Part I Item 1A Risk Factors - " Initial production of commercial units of our core products, the Guardian XO and Guardian XT, may be delayed beyond the end of 2022 and therefore initial delivery to customers could be beyond early 2023 . " 12 Continued Investment in Innovation We will continue to invest significant resources in developing proprietary technologies across hardware, firmware, software and controls to commercialize our robotic systems. We expect our research and development activities to focus on areas such as kinematic equivalency, teleoperation, human-like dexterity with augmented strength, energetic autonomy and safety of robotic systems. We expect these efforts to continue to build our intellectual property portfolio and our design and engineering expertise as we work to achieve the product capabilities needed for effective commercialization. Establish a RaaS Subscription Model to Accelerate Adoption of our Robotic Systems We expect to offer our Guardian XO and Guardian XT primarily through a RaaS subscription model where customers pay a monthly subscription fee for the use of our robotic systems, as well as maintenance, servicing and software upgrades. We believe the RaaS subscription model will be attractive to our customers and accelerate market adoption of our robotic systems because it will lower the upfront costs of deployment for customers, shift customer capital expenditures to operating expenditures, allow customers to more nimbly scale deployments up or down in response to market conditions and make our products more accessible to customers of all sizes. Our RaaS subscription model will also allow us to generate recurring revenue which would improve our visibility into future results. Capital Efficient Manufacturing We intend to explore different options for manufacturing our products and select the most capital efficient manufacturing process, with a focus also on speed to market, quality and scalability. One available option is outsourced manufacturing by established third-party contract manufacturers. This approach would reduce our up-front capital investment and eliminate the recurring fixed costs and overhead that would be required for us to own and operate a manufacturing facility. Outsourced manufacturing would also allow us to focus on our core competencies while significantly reducing overall risk and give us the flexibility to quickly scale volumes up or down to match demand levels since we can leverage an established manufacturing operation and supply chain. Another available option is in-house manufacturing of our products. Although this approach would require a more significant capital investment at the start, it would provide us with increased flexibility, such as the ability to react to changing conditions without regard to minimum order quantity requirements frequently imposed by contract manufacturers. In-house manufacturing may also allow for more flexibility in customizing our products when requested by customers and provide more direct control over quality, product costs and product supply and timing. We may also elect to pursue a blend of contract and in-house manufacturing. We estimate that our new facility has the capacity to produce between 300 to 500 u nits per year. Although we currently expect to favor an outsourced manufacturing model, we have not yet entered into an agreement with a third-party contract manufacturer and may ultimately determine that in-house manufacturing is the better alternative for our products. Expand Target Markets We are currently engaging with development partners in various industries in the United States, including aerospace, automotive, aviation, construction, defense, utilities, distribution and warehousing, industrial manufacturing, maritime, military and oil and gas. We believe working with these partners will allow us to accelerate our brand awareness within these and adjacent industries and provide complementary capabilities and differentiation that will attract new customers while helping us expand our customer base. Additionally, while our focus has been primarily on the U.S. domestic market, we aim to expand our presence in select non-U.S. markets, most likely focusing on areas such as South Korea, Japan and Western Europe, in the future through relationships with a network of distributors. We believe this diversified industry and geographic approach will allow us to identify new applications for our robotic platforms and provide us with customer feedback to assist our product development efforts while ensuring that we are addressing a broad range of markets. Pursue Selective Strategic Acquisitions and Partnerships We plan to pursue strategic acquisitions from time to time that we believe will be complementary to our existing business or otherwise increase the value proposition we deliver to our customers. For example, we may pursue acquisitions that we believe will help us add new or enhanced capabilities or technology, expand our product offering, accelerate customer growth, enter new markets or add talent and expertise to our organization. 13 We may also enter into strategic partnerships from time to time, including to combine our product offerings with those of our partners. For example, we may partner with companies whose products may serve as a mobile base for the Guardian XT and offer the combined unit as a standalone product. Among other benefits, these partnerships could reduce barriers to customer adoption and use of our products, allow us to leverage the partner’s existing sales and distribution channels or provide lead generation and conversion of additional potential customers for our other product offerings. Competitive Strengths Differentiated and Proprietary Technology We believe our technology distinguishes us from others in the industrial robotics space because our technology seeks to augment, rather than replace, humans by combining human intelligence, instinct and judgment with the strength, endurance and precision of machines. We are a pioneer in the robotic systems industry and benefit from lessons learned over more than 30 years and $300 million in research and development investment in our proprietary technologies, as well as our extensive patent portfolio. We believe that our innovations, including advances in energetic autonomy, kinematic equivalency and human like dexterity, together with advances in electronics, materials, motors and other components of our products, will enable us to produce machines that do not suffer from historical limitations and are intuitive to use and relatively quick and easy for setup and changeover. Worldwide, as of March 2022, we had approximately 172 patents and approximately 108 filed patent applications. Early Mover Across Wide Range of Industries We believe we are creating an entirely new category of industrial highly-dexterous mobile robotic systems that augment, rather than replace, humans. While developing our products in recent years we have engaged in frequent dialogue with leaders in the industries we expect to target, including through our Technical Advisory Group, which includes executive-level participants from various Fortune 500 companies. We believe our efforts and position as a pioneer in industrial highly-dexterous mobile robotic systems and our head-start in developing relationships with potential customers situate us well to further develop and expand our product portfolio to address a significant market opportunity and additional use cases. Visionary and Experienced Management We have a proven and experienced team with deep operational expertise in bringing emerging technologies to market. Our team is led by Ben Wolff, our Executive Chairman, and Kiva Allgood, our Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Wolff has led two publicly-traded companies and was co-founder and chief executive officer of Clearwire, a leading mobile communications company. Ms. Allgood has many years of executive-level, operational experience within global telecommunications and technology companies, including Ericsson and Qualcomm. Our engineering and design efforts are led by a highly experienced robotics team with hundreds of years of cumulative robotics experience, with many members of our engineering team working together for over 20 years. Members of our board of directors have extensive experience across a wide array of disciplines, including experience in many of the industries that we intend to serve and in the production and delivery of complex hardware and software solutions. Strategic Collaborators We collaborate with various companies, such as companies represented on our Technical Advisory Group, which is comprised of executives from more than a dozen Fortune 500 companies, including Delta Air Lines, GE, Microsoft, Schlumberger and The Boeing Company. Some of the companies represented are also investors in Sarcos. Our strategic engagement with high profile industry leaders provides valuable feedback that we believe will enhance our early mover advantage and product development efforts. We also expect that these relationships will provide enhanced credibility and customer conversion. Competition We believe we are developing a new category of industrial robotic systems that augment, rather than replace, humans. In many cases, our primary competition will be traditional modes of human labor, sometimes assisted with material handling products such as overhead cranes, forklifts, and pallet jacks. To overcome potential resistance to innovation and the adoption of new products and ways of working, we must demonstrate to customers the value proposition of our products, including increased productivity, reduced costly occupational injuries and a broadened pool of available employees by equalizing workers’ physical capabilities including older and less physically strong workers. Additionally, our product offerings compete in a broad competitive landscape that includes robotics and automation companies that have both directly competing as well as alternative solutions ranging from exoskeletons, collaborative robots, industrial 14 robots, traditional lift-assist equipment and unmanned robotic vehicles. We also view our competitive landscape to include companies who have different but unique product lines in the automation space, such as ABB Robotics, Siasun Robot & Automation, Teradyne and Berkshire Grey. Also included in our broader competitive landscape are robotic solution suppliers, like Rockwell Automation, Honeywell, Keyence Corporation, COGNEX Corporation and Hexagon AB, which may not have a directly competing product today, but which could become competitors through diversification; these companies have existing customer relationships and channels, as well as significant financial and other resources, that could enable them to emerge as formidable competitors in the future. The following is a breakdown of the competitive landscape by product area: • The Guardian XO competes with robotics and automation solutions that help workers with heavy materials handling, heavy lift-and-transport-assist and overhead assembly type jobs. Principal competitors include Hyundai and Daewoo, who have previously shown powered exoskeleton prototype units, and companies like Cyberdyne, Samsung, Panasonic, Ekso Bionics, Ottobock, Lockheed Martin, SuitX and Levitate who currently sell powered, partial-body exoskeletons or passively-powered, partial-body variants. • The Guardian XT faces a varied competitive landscape that includes collaborative robotics companies, as well as automation companies like Teradyne, ABB Robotics, Siasun Robot & Automation, Berkshire Grey, Ready Robotics and OMRON. • The Guardian S mobile IoT platform competes with other ground-based unmanned vehicles offered by companies such as Eddyfi Technologies and Waygate Technologies; it also competes with aerial unmanned vehicle companies, like Flyability. Other notable adjacent market and other competitors include Gecko Robotics, Teledyne FLIR, ICM, RedZone Robotics, Clearpath Robotics and Easysight Technology. These companies have products that are commercially available and/or in development. We expect some products currently in development to become commercially available in the next few years. In addition, we compete with companies that develop artificial intelligence and industrial automation solutions, such as those offered by Hyundai-Boston Dynamics, Canvas Technology, DroneSense, Intuitive, iRobot, Hahn Robotics, Kuka, Neurala, Ready Robotics, Rethink Robotics and Yaskawa. Our competitor base may change or expand as we continue to develop and commercialize our robotic systems in the future. These or other competitors may develop new technologies or products that provide superior results to customers or are less expensive than our products. Our technologies and products could be rendered obsolete by such developments. See Part I Item 1A Risk Factors - “ We operate in a competitive industry that is subject to rapid technological change, and we expect competition to increase.” We expect that we will compete on the following factors: • technological innovation; • product quality, reliability and safety; • product features and performance; • product pricing; • manufacturing efficiency and resources; • brand; • customer experience, including support; and • existing customer relationships. We believe we do and will compete favorably on the basis of these factors; however, our potential competitors may have greater financial, technical, manufacturing and other resources than we have. Our competitors may be able to deploy greater resources to the design, development, manufacturing, distribution, promotion, sales, marketing and support of their industrial robotics programs. Additionally, our competitors may have greater name recognition, longer operating histories, larger sales forces, broader customer and industry relationships and other tangible and intangible resources, than we have. Furthermore, our competitors may decide to operate solely with a traditional sales model for robotic systems that may be viewed more favorably 15 by potential customers. These competitors also compete with us in recruiting and retaining qualified research and development, sales, marketing and management personnel, as well as in acquiring technologies complementary to, or necessary for, our products. Additional mergers and acquisitions in the industrial robotics market may result in even more resources being concentrated in our competitors. Customers and Partners Our customers and development partners include some of the largest enterprises in our target markets (aerospace, automotive, aviation, construction, defense, distribution and warehousing, industrial manufacturing, maritime, military, and oil and gas), including Delta Air Lines, General Electric, Schlumberger, The Boeing Company and other Fortune 500 companies, as well as the U.S. Department of Defense. We also have significant engagement with small and medium-sized potential customers across the aerospace, automotive, construction, defense, manufacturing, oil and gas, power and utilities and warehouse and logistics markets. With our core products, the Guardian XO and Guardian XT, still under development, we have no binding customer commitments for the commercial production version of these products. We have numerous ongoing discussions with prospective customers who have collectively expressed interest in thousands of units. However, these discussions may not result in binding orders or sales. Similarly, while we have current development contracts with the Department of Defense and other government entities covering both the Guardian XO and Guardian DX, these development contracts may not result in commercial orders or sales from these or other government entities. Research and Development Our research and development team is comprised of technology experts from fields including mechanical and electrical engineering, systems engineering, software/firmware/controls engineering, artificial intelligence and machine learning, finite element analysis, human factors and design and applications engineering. Our primary areas of focus in research and development include, for the Guardian XO, kinematic equivalency to provide human-like dexterity and enable intuitive use and energetic autonomy; and, for the Guardian XT, teleoperation and force feedback. Our research and development efforts also include our DFX (design for excellence) work, including comprehensive design for manufacturing, design for cost and procurement, design for testing and design for assembly. These efforts are aimed at ensuring the manufacturability, serviceability and robustness of our products. Our research and development expenses were $17.5 million and $14.1 million during 2021 and 2020, respectively, and are likely to grow in the future. Our customer first, collaborative approach is a cornerstone of our research and development processes. Sales and Marketing We currently sell our Guardian S through a hybrid model of direct sales and distribution channels. We expect to offer the Guardian XO and Guardian XT through a similar model. Currently, we focus our resources on companies represented on our Technical Advisory Group and other leading companies in key vertical markets. Due to their size and their potential opportunity and willingness to be early adopters, we believe these companies have the potential and ability to serve as referenceable customers and drive additional sales. We intend to continue to invest in our sales and marketing efforts as we approach commercial launch of the Guardian XO and Guardian XT. We intend to pursue strategic relationships with systems integrators, companies with complementary technologies, software application providers, distributors and consulting firms to expand the channels in which our solutions are marketed. We believe working with these partners will accelerate our brand awareness within various industries and provide complementary capabilities and differentiation that will attract new customers while helping us expand our customer base. We expect to operate a RaaS subscription model for the Guardian XO and the Guardian XT, which we believe will drive accelerated adoption following commercial launch. We believe the RaaS subscription model will be attractive to our customers and accelerate market adoption of our robotic systems because it will lower the upfront costs of deployment, shift capital expenditures to operating expenditures, allow customers to more nimbly scale deployments up or down in response to market conditions and make our products more accessible to customers of all sizes. Manufacturing and Suppliers 16 We intend to explore different options for manufacturing our products and select the most capital efficient manufacturing process, with a focus also on speed to market and scalability. Although we currently expect to favor an outsourced manufacturing model, we have not yet entered into an agreement with a third-party contract manufacturer and may ultimately determine that in-house manufacturing is the better alternative for our products. See above discussion under “Growth Strategy - Capital Efficient Manufacturing.” We maintain a diverse set of suppliers. However, as we scale production, we expect the identity and magnitude of our suppliers to change materially. Government Regulation We are subject to various U.S. federal, state and local laws and regulations governing the occupational health and safety of our employees and wage regulations, including the requirements of the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Act, as amended, or OSHA, and comparable state laws that protect and regulate employee health and safety. We are also subject to U.S. laws and regulations that limit and restrict the export of some of our products and services and may restrict our transactions with certain customers, business partners and other persons. In certain circumstances, export control and economic sanctions regulations may prohibit the export of certain products, services and technologies, and in other circumstances we may be required to obtain an export license before exporting the controlled item. We must also comply with export restrictions and laws imposed by other countries affecting trade and investments. We maintain an export compliance program but there are risks that the compliance controls might not be effective, exposing us to legal liabilities. Compliance with these laws has not significantly limited our sales but could significantly limit them in the future. Changes in, and responses to, U.S. trade policy could reduce the competitiveness of our products and cause our sales to drop or make it difficult or impossible to enter affected markets, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations. Our robotic platforms must comply with the rules of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) with respect to: any radio frequency, or RF, spectrum utilized for such components as the remote control or teleoperation system; the power level and frequency of any RF energy emitted (intentionally or otherwise); and any conditions imposed by the FCC on the device certification(s) issued to us or to third parties for any modular transmitters installed in our products. Such rules require, among other things, specific consumer disclosures with respect to RF emissions and proper installation and operation of the device components and any modular transmitters in our products. We are subject to requirements under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 that will require us to diligence, disclose and report whether our products contain conflict minerals. The implementation of these requirements could adversely affect the sourcing, availability and pricing of the materials used in the manufacture of components used in our products. Intellectual Property Our ability to create, obtain and maintain intellectual property is important to our business. We rely upon a combination of protections afforded to owners of patents, copyrights, trade secrets and trademarks, along with employee and third-party non-disclosure agreements and other contractual restrictions to establish and protect our intellectual property rights. We pursue patent protection at times when we believe we have developed a patentable invention and the benefits of obtaining a patent outweigh the risks of making the invention public through patent filings. Our patents and patent applications are focused primarily on robots and robotic systems, including wearable exoskeletons to enhance human operations, humanoid robots, teleoperated robots, mobile platform-based robotic arms, teleoperated robots, unmanned ground robots and end effectors. We also have patents and patent applications covering technology in the fields of counter-attack unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) for enemy drone neutralization, various micro-camera and other medical devices, augmented reality, sensors, valves, motors, actuators and others. As of March 2022, we had approximately 79 issued U.S. patents and approximately 93 issued international patents, as well as approximately 108 patent applications filed in the United States or internationally. Many of our issued patents have expired, with others set to expire on dates ranging from 2022 to 2039, exclusive of any patent term adjustment or patent term extension. We do not know whether all of our pending patent applications will result in issued patents, or whether the examination process will require a narrowing of claimed subject matter. Furthermore, in light of the highly active fields of technology in which we are involved, particularly the field of robotics, our patents and pending patent applications may not provide us with broad-level protection. 17 In an effort to protect our brand, we also pursue the registration of our domain names and various trademarks and service marks in the United States and in select international locations. Legal Proceedings From time to time, we may be subject to legal proceedings. We are not currently a party to or aware of any proceedings that we believe will have, individually or in the aggregate, a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations. Regardless of outcome, litigation can have an adverse impact on us because of defense and settlement costs, diversion of management resources and other factors. Human Capital Our employees are critical to our success. As of December 31, 2021, we had approximately 160 full-time and part-time employees with the majority of our employees based in the Salt Lake City, Utah area. We also engage consultants and contractors to supplement our permanent workforce on an as-needed basis. A majority of our employees are involved in engineering, research and development and related functions. To date, we have not experienced any organized work stoppages and consider our relationship with our employees to be good. None of our employees are subject to a collective bargaining agreement or represented by a labor union. Facilities We operate in a corporate and manufacturing facility in Salt Lake City, Utah consisting of approximately 60,000 square feet. The lease expires May of 2033 and has two options to extend the lease for a three-year period each. We believe that this facility, which includes office, development, testing and light manufacturing space, will adequately serve our current needs. Should we need additional space, we believe we will be able to obtain additional space on commercially reasonable terms. 18