OpenAI this week unveiled a preview of OpenAI o1, also known as Strawberry. The company claims that o1 can more effectively reason through math and science, as well as fact-check itself by spending more time considering all parts of a query. The family of models is available in ChatGPT and via OpenAI’s API, though OpenAI […]
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Figure is testing Figure 02’s efficacy for helping out in the kitchen and picking up around the house.
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Today, Figure is introducing the newest, slimmest, shiniest, and least creatively named next generation of its humanoid robot: Figure 02. According to the press release, Figure 02 is the result of “a ground-up hardware and software redesign” and is “the highest performing humanoid robot,” which may even be true for some arbitrary value of “performing.” Also notable is that Figure has been actively testing robots with BMW at a manufacturing plant in Spartanburg, S.C., where the new humanoid has been performing “data collection and use case training.”
The rest of the press release is pretty much, “Hey, check out our new robot!” And you’ll get all of the content in the release by watching the videos. What you won’t get from the videos is any additional info about the robot. But we sent along some questions to Figure about these videos, and have a few answers from Michael Rose, director of controls, and Vadim Chernyak, director of hardware.
First, the trailer:
How many parts does Figure 02 have, and is this all of them?
Figure: A couple hundred unique parts and a couple thousand parts total. No, this is not all of them.
Does Figure 02 make little Figure logos with every step?
Figure: If the surface is soft enough, yes.
Swappable legs! Was that hard to do, or easier to do because you only have to make one leg? Figure: We chose to make swappable legs to help with manufacturing.
Is the battery pack swappable too?
Figure: Our battery is swappable, but it is not a quick swap procedure.
What’s that squishy-looking stuff on the back of Figure 02’s knees and in its elbow joints?
Figure: These are soft stops which limit the range of motion in a controlled way and prevent robot pinch points
Where’d you hide that thumb motor?
Figure: The thumb is now fully contained in the hand.
Tell me about the “skin” on the neck!
Figure: The skin is a soft fabric which is able to keep a clean seamless look even as the robot moves its head.
And here’s the reveal video:
When Figure 02’s head turns, its body turns too, and its arms move. Is that necessary, or aesthetic?
Figure: Aesthetic.
The upper torso and shoulders seem very narrow compared to other humanoids. Why is that?
Figure: We find it essential to package the robot to be of similar proportions to a human. This allows us to complete our target use cases and fit into our environment more easily.
What can you tell me about Figure 02’s walking gait?
Figure: The robot is using a model predictive controller to determine footstep locations and forces required to maintain balance and follow the desired robot trajectory.
How much runtime do you get from 2.25 kilowatt-hours doing the kinds of tasks that we see in the video?
Figure: We are targeting a 5-hour run time for our product.
Slick, but also a little sinister?Figure
This thing looks slick. I’d say that it’s maybe a little too far on the sinister side for a robot intended to work around humans, but the industrial design is badass and the packaging is excellent, with the vast majority of the wiring now integrated within the robot’s skins and flexible materials covering joints that are typically left bare. Figure, if you remember, raised a US $675 million Series B that valued the company at $2.6 billion, and somehow the look of this robot seems appropriate to that.
I do still have some questions about Figure 02, such as where the interesting foot design came from and whether a 16-degree-of-freedom hand is really worth it in the near term. It’s also worth mentioning that Figure seems to have a fair number of Figure 02 robots running around—at least five units at its California headquarters, plus potentially a couple of more at the BMW Spartanburg manufacturing facility.
I also want to highlight this boilerplate at the end of the release: “our humanoid is designed to perform human-like tasks within the workforce and in the home.” We are very, very far away from a humanoid robot in the home, but I appreciate that it’s still an explicit goal that Figure is trying to achieve. Because I want one.
Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion.
Enjoy today’s videos!
Figure is making progress toward a humanoid robot that can do something useful, but keep in mind that the “full use case” here is not one continuous shot.
[ Figure ]
Can this robot survive a 1-meter drop? Spoiler alert: it cannot.
[ WVUIRL ]
One of those things that’s a lot harder for robots than it probably looks.
This is a demo of hammering a nail. The instantaneous rebound force from the hammer is absorbed through a combination of the elasticity of the rubber material securing the hammer, the deflection in torque sensors and harmonic gears, back-drivability, and impedance control. This allows the nail to be driven with a certain amount of force.
[ Tokyo Robotics ]
Although bin packing has been a key benchmark task for robotic manipulation, the community has mainly focused on the placement of rigid rectilinear objects within the container. We address this by presenting a soft robotic hand that combines vision, motor-based proprioception, and soft tactile sensors to identify, sort, and pack a stream of unknown objects.
[ MIT CSAIL ]
Status Update: Extending traditional visual servo and compliant control by integrating the latest reinforcement and imitation learning control methodologies, UBTECH gradually trains the embodied intelligence-based “cerebellum” of its humanoid robot Walker S for diverse industrial manipulation tasks.
[ UBTECH ]
If you’re gonna ask a robot to stack bread, better make it flat.
[ FANUC ]
Cassie has to be one of the most distinctive sounding legged robots there is.
[ Paper ]
Twice the robots are by definition twice as capable, right...?
[ Pollen Robotics ]
The Robotic Systems Lab participated in the Advanced Industrial Robotic Applications (AIRA) Challenge at the ACHEMA 2024 process industry trade show, where teams demonstrated their teleoperated robotic solutions for industrial inspection tasks. We competed with the ALMA legged manipulator robot, teleoperated using a second robot arm in a leader-follower configuration, placing us in third place for the competition.
[ ETHZ RSL ]
This is apparently “peak demand” in a single market for Wing delivery drones.
[ Wing ]
Using a new type of surgical intervention and neuroprosthetic interface, MIT researchers, in collaboration with colleagues from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, have shown that a natural walking gait is achievable using a prosthetic leg fully driven by the body’s own nervous system. The surgical amputation procedure reconnects muscles in the residual limb, which allows patients to receive “proprioceptive” feedback about where their prosthetic limb is in space.
[ MIT ]
Coal mining in Forest of Dean (UK) is such a difficult and challenging job. Going into the mine as human is sometimes almost impossible. We did it with our robot while inspecting the mine with our partners (Forestry England) and the local miners!
[ UCL RPL ]
Chill.
[ ABB ]
Would you tango with a robot? Inviting us into the fascinating world of dancing machines, robot choreographer Catie Cuan highlights why teaching robots to move with grace, intention and emotion is essential to creating AI-powered machines we will want to welcome into our daily lives.
[ TED ]
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