Benchmarking humanoid robots begins!
Plus robot brains from Covariant and Physical Intelligence (just out of stealth)
Dirty little secret here… later stage funding rounds are supposed to be larger than earlier stage. This chart just shows that we’re seeing the first mid stage deals. However CB Insights is correct in saying that there’s a wave of interest!
Humanoid robots are riding a wave of investor and market interest as they reach new levels of technical capability.
2024 is set to see the commercial release of several new humanoid robots, which resemble the human body and can perform tasks traditionally carried out by humans in areas like manufacturing, logistics, and retail.
The battle for the survival of the fittest humanoid robots is on! And it’s going to be determined by the benchmark.
What is the benchmark for humanoid robots? Well, atm it’s whatever you want it to be. This is where teams with lots of money and/or large PR teams and/or popular/viral videos get out in front of the rest. They are de facto setting the benchmarks by which other companies are judged.
What do customers really need? A bad benchmark that I’ve heard recently is ‘speed’ (compared to a human OR another robot arm). If we’re looking at this from a commercial perspective, who cares if a robot is slower than a human for the first hour if it can keep going for hours at a time without stopping. And who cares if it’s slower than an industrial arm, if it’s able to rapidly move into new work areas without requiring reinstallation. Not to mention the safety aspects!
Another benchmark is dexterity and no robot can match a human for hand dexterity. Melonee Wise and Damion Shelton of Agility Robotics make a good point in TechCrunch however. None of the commercial solutions at Modex or other industry tradeshows have robots with human hand equivalents. Most work can be done with much simpler end effectors. Not only that but robots of the future will be able to swap their end of arm tooling in a way that humans certainly can’t.
Human hands are incredible! But do robots need them? Not yet, and probably not for a very long time. We really don’t need robots that imitate people, no matter how much movies, sci-fi and our own natural biases would like that.
At the IEEE Humanoids Conference in Austin TX, all of the humanoid robotics leaders on the industry panel spoke of the need to provide common benchmarks in order to support the emerging market. Let me know if you’re interested in joining a new Humanoids Standards Working Group with IEEE RAS!
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If you are a robotics company, March is a great time to join Silicon Valley Robotics and our startup accelerator program.
Interesting Robots:
Building Bionic Jellyfish for Ocean Exploration - CalTech
RT-Sketch: Goal-Conditioned Imitation Learning from Hand-Drawn Sketches - Priya Sundaresan,1, 3 Quan Vuong,2 Jiayuan Gu,2 Peng Xu,2 Ted Xiao,2 Sean Kirmani,2 Tianhe Yu,2 Michael Stark,3 Ajinkya Jain,3 Karol Hausman,1, 2 Dorsa Sadigh*,1, 2 Jeannette Bohg*,1 Stefan Schaal*,3
*Equal advising, alphabetical order
1Stanford University, 2Google DeepMind, 3[Google] Intrinsic
More Robotics News:
Autonomous Vehicle Startup Applied Intuition Hits $6B Valuation After $250M Series E - Crunchbase News
Automated Driving Systems Should be Rated, IIHS Says - Autoweek
SWRI develops autonomous driving tools for ‘stealthy and agile’ off-road vehicles - The Engineer
Moon mining startup Interlune wants to start digging for helium-3 by 2030 - Engadget
This year autonomous trucks will take to the road with no one on board - IEEE Spectrum
Newesy Piaggio EV isn’t a Vespa - it’s an adorable robot work cart - Electrek
Bear Robotics, a robot waiter startup, just picked up $60M from LG - TechCrunch
Amazon’s Zoox robotaxis to drive faster, farther, at night in Las Vegas - Reuters
Aurora’s driverless trucks show they are for real - Freight Waves
Forterra, Kalmar Partner on Autonomous Terminal Tractors - Transport Topics
These commercial brands are testing Level 4 autonomous trucks through Plus partnership - Electrek
Anyware Robotics’ Pixmo Robots Add-On to Further Increase Container Unloading Throughput - Supply & Demand Chain Executive
Scythe expands production facility for robot mowers - The Robot Report
The World’s First Autonomous Snowplows Are in Service - Car and Driver
Will autonomous robots replace us or create more job opportunities for humans at sea? - Euronews.next
Urban Value Corner Store to open autonomous micro markets - CSNews
Inside the Chipotle founder’s new robot-powered vegan restaurant - Axios
Reflex Robotics’ wheeled humanoid is here to grab you a snack - TechCrunch
Intuitive Launches latest da Vinci robot, with force feedback controls - Fierce Biotech
I Tried Aescape’s Robot-Arm-Powered Massage Table - and Loved Being in Control - Wired
ANYmal can do parkour and walk across rubble - ETH Zurich
ABB Opens Revamped Robotics Center in Michigan Amid Growing Demand for AI Robots - WSJ
Covariant launches the first version of its ‘robot brain’ AI that learns by watching and listening - The Verge
Physical Intelligence is Building a Brain for Robots - Bloomberg
Watch the Figure 01 Robot Feed a Human, Sort the Dishes, And Stammer Like Us Meatbags - The Spoon
Mercedes wants humanoid robots to take over ‘physically demanding’ work - Quartz
The loneliness of the robotics humanoid - TechCrunch
Spotlight on mobility trends - McKinsey
The autonomous robotics future is around the corner - Bessemer Venture Partners
These 61 robotics companies are hiring - TechCrunch
Robotics Events:
28-29 March - Curbivore - Downtown Los Angeles
Delivery & Mobility Innovation Converge at Curbivore - Special Offer for Members!
Join me at Curbivore, where the worlds of delivery robotics, mobility innovation, food automation, civic technology and policy / regulation converge, March 28 & 29 in Downtown LA. Meet with and hear from leaders at Starship, Waymo, DoorDash, Uber, Coco Robotics, Zenblen, as well as investors, media, and more - plus get your hands on all the latest machinery. First time attendees can join for just $20 when they register with code RS20.
5-6 April - SF Symphony: Press Play Carol Reiley and the Robots - Soundbox SF
6 April - Robot Block Party - Circuit Launch San Leandro at Bayfair Mall
18-21 April 2024 - RoboGames - TBC
21 April 2024 - Robots on Ice - Yerba Buena Skating Rink SF
Some more upcoming academic robotics conferences:
Haptics 2024 Long Beach CA 7 Apr - 10 Apr
Robosoft 2024 San Diego CA 14 Apr - 17 Apr
ICRA 2024 Yokohama Japan 13 May - 17 May 2024
ARSO 2024 Hong Kong, China 20 May - 22 May 2024
AIM 2024 Boston MA 14 July - 18 July
CASE 2024 Puglia Italy 28 Aug - 1 Sep 2024
IROS 2024 AbuDhabi 14 Oct - 18 Oct 2024
Humanoids 2024 Nancy FR 26 Nov - 28 Nov
ICRA 2025 Atlanta Georgia 17 May - 23 May 2025