InOrbit is open-sourcing OpenRobOps (ORO), a full fleet management platform built on technology that's already managing thousands of robots in production. This resolves the build-vs-buy dilemma that's forced robotics companies to either reinvent fleet management from scratch or sacrifice control over their infrastructure. The company is also adding Steve Cousins to its board—the former Willow Garage CEO who helped scale ROS adoption and founded Savioke. He's comparing ORO's potential impact to what ROS did for robot development.
MOUNTAINVIEW, Calif., Feb. 4, 2026 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Open source initiative and key leadership addition accelerate the shift to software-defined robot orchestration
InOrbit.AI today announced the appointment of Steve Cousins to its Board of Directors and the upcoming availability of OpenRobOps (ORO) as an open-source platform for robot operations. These strategic moves are designed to standardize the foundational layer of robot connectivity, accelerating deployment of smart robots and resolving the fragmentation that currently stalls enterprise fleet deployment.
Open Source Contribution Accelerates Robot Scaling
The robotics industry historically faced a "build vs. buy" dilemma, forcing developers to choose between building proprietary fleet management tools or sacrificing control. InOrbit is resolving this by contributing OpenRobOps to the open source robotics community. Built on InOrbit's proven platform, which has managed thousands of robots, OpenRobOps is a full-fledged fleet management and robot operations solution. It will be offered under a permissive, full open-source software license later this year. Ahead of the general release, InOrbit is already collaborating with partners across academia, industry, and service providers, allowing key ecosystem players to begin integrating and contributing to the platform immediately. ORO will provide developers with a transparent, self-hostable foundation for robot observability and management, democratizing access to the common infrastructure needed to operate robots at scale.
"I've talked to too many founders in robotics who are reinventing the wheel and failing to scale," said Florian Pestoni, Founder and CEO of InOrbit. "By open-sourcing the core operations layer, we empower developers to own their data and infrastructure. End users can more easily orchestrate robots across vendors by using InOrbit Space Intelligence, our award-winning, AI-powered platform."
Developers who prefer a fully managed cloud platform can opt for InOrbit Ground Control, a commercial implementation of the OpenRobOps standard with advanced functionality and support. This allows teams to start with the open-source core and upgrade as scaling needs grow, or go from hosted to self-managed without changing their underlying data architecture.
Steve Cousins Joins Board
Steve Cousins joins the InOrbit Board of Directors, bringing decades of leadership in robotics. As the Executive Director of the Stanford Robotics Center and a founding board member of the Open Source Robotics Foundation (OSRF), Cousins is a leading voice in academia. He was instrumental in developing and spreading the Robot Operating System (ROS) during his tenure as CEO of Willow Garage, and was among the first to commercialize ROS as Founder of Savioke.
"InOrbit is doing for fleet operations what ROS did for robot development," said Cousins. "Savioke was an early InOrbit customer, so I saw firsthand the value of the platform. I joined the board because I see the need in the broader robotics community: standardizing the common infrastructure is necessary to unlock the next wave of innovation and scale."
Ecosystem Validation
The ORO initiative launches with validation from leading academic and industrial partners who are already leveraging the platform.
Geoffrey Biggs, CTO at Open Robotics, welcomes this contribution to the robotics community. "OpenRobOps fills an important role within the open source robotics ecosystem, providing a fleet manager with native support for ROS and Open RMF."
Brian Gerkey, CTO at Intrinsic (an Alphabet company), is happy to see this important addition to the robotics commons. "Robot researchers used to reinvent the wheel until ROS came along and provided the core building blocks. Now OpenRobOps will bring similar building blocks to fleet management."
Felipe Garcia Lopez, Director of Robotic Systems at Kärcher, has leveraged InOrbit Ground Control to scale the KIRA floor scrubber fleet. "OpenRobOps gives robotics companies worldwide access to commercial-grade operations software, a true game changer for the industry."
Florencia Grosso, Business Director at Ekumen, is excited to help bring world-class fleet management to the ROS ecosystem. "OpenRobOps accelerates the transition from lab to real world as a standard fleet management layer that integrates natively with ROS and Open RMF."
Other supporters include Dr. Lorenzo Masia, Executive Director of the Munich Institute for Robotics and Machine Intelligence (MIRMI) at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), and Ricardo Petrazzini, CEO of Robotic Crew.
About InOrbit
InOrbit.AI is the leader in software-defined orchestration for the physical world. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, InOrbit is innovating at the intersection of Agentic AI and Physical AI, empowering enterprises to optimize the flow of goods, people, and data in the physical world.
Media Contact
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SOURCE InOrbit
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