Musk’s humanoid robots are here but they won’t help around the house

The limitations of a robot come from its components: cameras, the lidar and radar, the motors and actuators, the power pack and the computer.
The limitations of a robot come from its components: cameras, the lidar and radar, the motors and actuators, the power pack and the computer.

Summary

  • While technology has facilitated improved dexterity in robots like Tesla’s Optimus, making it a marketable household product remains a challenge. These machines would be great productivity boosters for factories and retailers, though.

Optimus, the humanoid robot that Elon Musk claims will do household chores and cure poverty, was a hit at Tesla’s recent product launch. 

While many Musk fans came for the main event—the reveal of the company’s much-hyped robotaxi—some in the crowd appeared more impressed with faceless black-and-white robots that danced, served drinks and interacted with human attendees. The movements of these bipedal robots were incredibly dexterous.

It seemed almost too good to be true. As the world later found out, it was: Tesla folks were partly in control remotely behind the scenes. Musk’s robot is likely many years away from being a marketable household product. 

But many companies are testing human-form robots in warehouses and on factory floors, structured settings where the tech can soon succeed. Humanoid robots being developed by Agility Robotics, Neura Robotics, Boston Dynamics, Apptronik, Reflex Robotics and others are more capable with each new version.

Also read: Elon Musk plays a familiar song: Robot cars are coming

Companies want bipedal robots because they combine mobility with robotic arms, enabling them to do jobs such as packing a truck densely with different-size boxes. But progress is gradual. The challenge is not only for robots to mimic human movements, but to do so safely around workers. This isn’t easy. 

Ask Melonee Wise, chief product officer at Agility Robotics, whose test robot still struggles to distinguish between the plastic containers it needs to pick up and a human hand grabbing that same container. The robot isn’t viable if it mistakenly crushes a worker’s hand.

At the Tesla event, Musk boasted that Optimus will be able to walk the dog, put away groceries and mow the lawn. Musk has a track record of making tech work, even though it’s usually later to market than he promises and never matches the hype he whips up. [Its rocket booster catch did work out.] But I’m betting against his idea of a home robot having more potential than a factory version. 

I’d be happy if Musk turns out right and I’m wrong, because the first thing my personal robot would learn is how to cut the grass on a hot summer day. Certainly, these machines shouldn’t ever be left alone to babysit kids, another task Musk claimed his robots will be able to do.

I’d expect Optimus to appear in factories long before it winds up in homes, provided it can meet the automation industry’s standard of a two-year return on investment. Retail settings, like fast-food restaurants, might come later. 

Robots might make great bartenders. But there are many reasons, including cost, maintenance and safety, that add complexity to the development of home robots. Whatever their eventual capabilities, household activities like the ones Musk touts won’t appear in anyone’s robot repertoire this decade.

Also read: Elon Musk’s humanoid robot can do squats and boil eggs. All you need to know about Optimus Gen-2

Instead of household chores, Digit, built by Agility Robotics, loads containers filled with Spanx shapewear products on a conveyor belt at an e-com warehouse in the Atlanta suburbs. The robot is improving its output and is getting closer to the 20 seconds it takes a human to do the job. 

Digit was last clocked at a pace of about 30 seconds, according to Wise. “We’re about to go through another major optimization, which should bring that down quite a bit," she said. Even simple tasks take a lot of programing, testing, trial and error.

Her team undertook a project to make Digit mimic how workers react when orders flood in and the conveyor belt has no open space for a container. 

The workers stack the boxes at the side of the belt. When the flood subsides and there is space, they place containers on the conveyor. This is complicated stuff for a robot to tackle. But once the robot does a task successfully, all robots can copy it.

The limitations of a robot come from its components: cameras, the lidar and radar that create vision, the motors and actuators that enable movement, the power pack that gives it energy and the computer that acts as a brain. Digit’s battery lasts four hours (two with strenuous work) and takes an hour to charge up.

Dexterity is improving rapidly. The advances that let robots balance on two feet have been astounding. Although our hands will likely never be matched by a machine, robots have the advantage of being able to swap out end-of-arm tools such as drills, pinchers, brushes and other so-called end-effectors that serve as robot hands.

For now, Agility’s robot is kept away from people. In a couple of years, Wise said, the company expects to have a version that will be safe to work among and interact with humans. 

Also read: Tesla’s Optimus robots were remotely operated by humans at Cybercab event, raises questions over capabilities: Report

Her company has about 15 customers that have signed or are in the process of signing contracts to use the robots. Humanoid robots are coming, and Musk’s Optimus may be among them.

Just don’t expect these robots to do your personal chores. ©bloomberg

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