Noca Labs builds cutting-edge hardware products

We are a versatile product design firm that works with startups and innovators to design and build hardware products.

Applications

Robotics

Logistics

IoT

Wearables

Data & Cloud

Web Apps

About Noca Labs

Noca Labs is a small product development company owned and managed by Patrick Dingle in Winchester, Massachusetts. Founded in 2014 in North Cambridge (hence "Noca"), we provide comprehensive product engineering services to bring innovative hardware concepts to reality. Patrick and his team of contractors are experts in automation, industrial products, IoT and consumer devices. Innovators rely on Noca Labs to fully own their hardware development, and partner with Noca to assist with specific subsystems or key components.

We believe in an integrated and concurrent approach to engineering starting with careful consideration of product architecture. Subsystems such as electronics, packaging, and actuation are considered and designed in parallel by a small and close-knit team of engineers, to avoid artificial design constraints and costly redesign cycles. Design for manufacturing and quality metrics are considered at every step of the design process. Rapid prototyping allows our team to quickly validate form, fit, and function, and our manufacturing experts can help you make all the key sourcing and tooling decisions needed scale the product to any quantity.

Patrick Dingle

Patrick was the first Mechanical Engineer hired by Kiva Systems (acquired by Amazon.com in 2012). During his seven years at Kiva, Patrick played key roles defining the hardware architecture of its mobile robots with the goal of maximizing total value for its customers. He played key roles in actuator selection and design, detailed mechanical design, industrial design, battery design, design for manufacturing, and on automated charging solutions. Additionally, he spent two years in program management leading new product introduction to bring its low-cost, high volume mobile robots to mass production for Amazon.com.

Prior to founding Noca Labs, Patrick Dingle was Director of Engineering at Empire Robotics. At Empire, Patrick led a small team of engineers and interns to bring an innovative robotic gripper from prototype to production. This "soft robotics" end effector is capable of conforming to the shape of arbitrary objects, whereafter air is vacuumed from within the gripper membrane to solidify a grasp on the object. Patrick and his team executed all aspects of the product design as well as managing supply chain.

Our Expertise

We are versatile engineers energized by difficult design challenges and opportunities to learn new skill-sets. Often, designing cutting-edge products necessitates quickly coming up to speed on new practices, components, and manufacturing methods. Our capabilities are broad, and we are able to quickly adapt, learn, or add team members to meet our particular needs. We are able to assist with end-to-end product and system development, or with assistance with your particular needs.

Systems Engineering

We help scope the requirements of your product, and determine every required subsystem along with estimating development time, resourcing requirements, and costs.

Mechanical & Industrial

Noca Labs is experienced at designing production-quality mechanical parts of all kinds, and can rapidly prototype your product in-house or via established relationships with manufacturers.

Electrical Engineering

We are able to design PCBAs and select appropriate components such as microcontrollers, sensors, actuators, batteries, and radio modules. We manage relationships with manufacturers to quickly produce custom electronics for your application.

Firmware

Our team develops firmware for your product, which serves as the interface between sensors, actuators, and other system components via Wifi, UWB, Zigbee, or other communications devices.

Control Systems

Our team has expertise in Control Systems and Estimation, and is able to develop customized control systems for actuating your product, as well as data fusion and estimation for products involving multiple sensors.

Software & Cloud

While our core focus is hardware, our team is also able to build cloud and database web applications, which are often required for larger systems that include hardware such as robots or internet-of-things devices.

Projects & Clients

6 River Systems

Noca Labs began working with 6 River Systems at its formation to help define its mobile robot product architecture. Noca helped define product subsystems in depth, refine key parameters of the design to better serve customers, and scope out the team size needed to develop the product. Noca worked hand-in-hand with the 6 River engineering team to design, source, and build its first few prototypes that were used as proof-of-concept, and remains engaged with 6 River Systems on an ongoing basis to help with technical development projects.

Righthand Robotics

Noca Labs worked with RightHand Robotics to bring their innovative each-picking gripper from the lab to production environments. Noca helped rigorously test their existing technology to eliminate potential points of failure and hardened the design to work robustly in dirty production environments for many millions of grip cycles. Noca managed the full Bill of Materials for multiple generations of grippers used in customer Beta installations.

Breathing-Detecting Baby Monitor

Noca Labs conceptualized, designed, and prototyped an innovative baby monitoring solution that detects a baby’s breathing using vision alone. Leveraging off-the-shelf sensors, a single board computer, and rapid prototyping, Noca was able to quickly bring the concept to reality and prove functionality via alpha testing.

Contact Us

To get in touch, simply fill out the form below or send us an email at inquiries[at]nocalabs[dot]com. We will make every effort to respond to your inquiry within one business day.

Your name:

Your email:

Your favorite color: To trip up the web bots

Your message: