Heartland Robotics today announced that it raised $20 million in a series B venture round led by Highland Capital Partners. Other investors include Sigma Partners and existing investors Bezos Expeditions and Charles River Ventures. The Boston-based company previously raised $7 million in August, 2009.

The founder of Heartland Robotics is Rodney Brooks, a former AI reseracher at MIT and one of the co-founders of iRobot. Instead of making robot vacuum cleaners, time around Brooks is developing a new class of manufacturing robots. I normally don&'t quote from a press release, but this Brooks quote sounds like something straight out of an Isaac Asimov novel:

&''Our robots will be intuitive to use, intelligent and highly flexible. They‚a4‚¬‚a4„ll be easy to buy, train, and deploy and will be unbelievably inexpensive. Heartland Robotics will change the definition of how and where robots can be used, dramatically expanding the robot marketplace.&''

They sound so harmless, don&'t they Let&'s just hope these robots obey the Three Laws of Robotics. I wonder if they&'ll be friends with the Anybots.