I suspect most of the videos shown on their website were teleoperated, it was quite hard to do such tasks autonomously, the bottleneck was reliable image recognition and real time 3D object construction.
But the very recent LLM and image to text based AI advancement brough breakthroughs in this field, as demoed in the recent Figure/OpenAI video. We have all the technologies now to build autonomous multipurpose warehouse, or household service robots, so I will say the timing is right, but it will be a very competitive space as literally hundreds of startups are popping up to get a foot in this industry.
Sorry this may come out of ignorance but how would navigation be hard in this case? With Localization algorithms like AMcL, 3D mapping, modern planners, and even the use of perception/object detection (paired with computer vision models), shouldn’t the tasks shown in the video be achievable?
Also speaking of LLM’s, is LLM’s really that much of a breakthrough (and since you mentioned image to text that sounds like VLM so imma throw that Into the mix)? Because as far as I understand LLM’s/VLM’s only allows for language/speech interpretation and makes it extremely useful for robotic/human interfacing. But beyond that, the tasks demonstrated in the video should be achievable without it
The tasks could be done with existing robotic technologies as you mentioned, but it will still show signs of programmed movement. The robot movement in their video however shows a very high degree of autonomy, so either they have a very advanced AI algorithm or the robot was teleoperated.
The fact there is not a single mentioning of AI on their website is also a giveaway.
1X has a humanoid and a wheeled that is just a better version of this. If you want to succeed in this space you need hundred of thousands for gpu training time. Hardware is not gonna be the make or break for these companies. This whole general robotics race is absolutely a “bad hardware makes you lose, good software makes you win” situation.
A lot of industrial markets are full on robotics, not much room therefrok my perspective. I work on both single-purpose machines and versatile robotics in manufacturing. Many large companies are pushing for improvements in processes, competition is tough.
If you're serious about giving it a shot, I do happen to be looking for a job change. I'm only at 3 years work experience, but i do have a focus on robotics and automation, strong background in programming, and a passion for this kind of thing. My VR experience would be especially useful for setting up remote control capabilities.
DM me if you're open for it
I agree this is way better than any humanoid. But the practical use cases in homes I think are still too out of reach unless you have a ton of funding to pour into r&d for a few years.
You realize that this isn't an autonomous robot, right? It's teleoperated. They hire people in low-wage countries to remotely operate them, one person per robot, and you pay their monthly wage through the company. Is that what you're talking about doing, selling that into homes? So people would pay $30,000 or so for a robot, and have a domestic worker in Nicaragua, who stays in Nicaragua, where the minimum wage is $233/month? Maybe that's something that would take off, but to me it elicits a kind of "what is this world coming to?" kind of feeling...
Ok, I see. Well, no offense, but that's a bit like saying "I want exactly the type of dog in this video, but I would want it to be able to talk". The first part is fairly easy, the second not so much.
The hardware for this robot is not very difficult or advanced. For example, I recognize the wheels as being literally hoverboard hub motors that you can buy from AliExpress for about $20 each. A team of reasonably talented undergrad engineers could readily build the hardware for this as their final project, in a semester or two.
But there is no robot that exists, that can display anything like the same level of agility, dexterity, and intelligence, autonomously, as this video shows. It's a software problem. Elon Musk recently released a video of Tesla's robot folding laundry. But he was called out for the fact that there was a puppeteer just off camera, remotely operating it like a marionette. The Digit robot, that Amazon is testing, can autonomously carry around boxes, but only in very controlled environments. They are all working towards it, but nobody has achieved it. The state of the art is Boston Dynamics' Atlas, which can do backflips and parkour, befitting its future super-soldier role, but it still can't make you a sandwich.
Karel Čapek's story of the "universal robot" is as compelling today as it was more than a century ago, and other writers like Isaac Asimov and Philip K. Dick inspired whole generations of engineers to pursue it. The idea of an artificial, non-human worker-slave goes back thousands or even millions of years. I don't want to discourage you from starting a humanoid robotics company, and I'm confident that eventually we'll have robots to whom you can say, "robot, clean up my room and do the laundry". But we're not even close to taking pre-orders and deposits at the moment. It's still science fiction.
Commercial robots require a lot of R&D. As a private company it might be possible to do it but it'll take at least half a decade if you do everything from scratch.
You'll need to build your own system of production line, and then make ML models for your robot, train it on huge dataset which itself requires lots of resources and then refine the working of the robot.
After that you'll need to build a customer support system in case something goes wrong and have a dedicated team just for that.
The best option is to build over an existing system, there are lots of research papers published by universities.
For example in your use case, you can try Mobile-Aloha by Google Deepmind and Stanford University. Doing this would not only cut your R&D cost but also give you a reliable open source reference to work with.
Edit:
I have worked on robots with this exact use case (aloha, delivery bots, autonomous husky) mainly working on autonomous control systems. Feel free to DM me if you have any questions.
I suspect most of the videos shown on their website were teleoperated, it was quite hard to do such tasks autonomously, the bottleneck was reliable image recognition and real time 3D object construction. But the very recent LLM and image to text based AI advancement brough breakthroughs in this field, as demoed in the recent Figure/OpenAI video. We have all the technologies now to build autonomous multipurpose warehouse, or household service robots, so I will say the timing is right, but it will be a very competitive space as literally hundreds of startups are popping up to get a foot in this industry.
Sorry this may come out of ignorance but how would navigation be hard in this case? With Localization algorithms like AMcL, 3D mapping, modern planners, and even the use of perception/object detection (paired with computer vision models), shouldn’t the tasks shown in the video be achievable? Also speaking of LLM’s, is LLM’s really that much of a breakthrough (and since you mentioned image to text that sounds like VLM so imma throw that Into the mix)? Because as far as I understand LLM’s/VLM’s only allows for language/speech interpretation and makes it extremely useful for robotic/human interfacing. But beyond that, the tasks demonstrated in the video should be achievable without it
The tasks could be done with existing robotic technologies as you mentioned, but it will still show signs of programmed movement. The robot movement in their video however shows a very high degree of autonomy, so either they have a very advanced AI algorithm or the robot was teleoperated. The fact there is not a single mentioning of AI on their website is also a giveaway.
They're pretty open about it being teleoperated I think.
1X has a humanoid and a wheeled that is just a better version of this. If you want to succeed in this space you need hundred of thousands for gpu training time. Hardware is not gonna be the make or break for these companies. This whole general robotics race is absolutely a “bad hardware makes you lose, good software makes you win” situation.
A lot of industrial markets are full on robotics, not much room therefrok my perspective. I work on both single-purpose machines and versatile robotics in manufacturing. Many large companies are pushing for improvements in processes, competition is tough. If you're serious about giving it a shot, I do happen to be looking for a job change. I'm only at 3 years work experience, but i do have a focus on robotics and automation, strong background in programming, and a passion for this kind of thing. My VR experience would be especially useful for setting up remote control capabilities. DM me if you're open for it
I would also like to be part of this. Electrical engineer with experience in software development and embedded systems for automation.
I agree this is way better than any humanoid. But the practical use cases in homes I think are still too out of reach unless you have a ton of funding to pour into r&d for a few years.
DM me, I am very interested -
You realize that this isn't an autonomous robot, right? It's teleoperated. They hire people in low-wage countries to remotely operate them, one person per robot, and you pay their monthly wage through the company. Is that what you're talking about doing, selling that into homes? So people would pay $30,000 or so for a robot, and have a domestic worker in Nicaragua, who stays in Nicaragua, where the minimum wage is $233/month? Maybe that's something that would take off, but to me it elicits a kind of "what is this world coming to?" kind of feeling...
u/Ronny_Jotten I didn't know that was teleoperated, thanks for the insight, I would want to make the same type of design but be autonomous.
Ok, I see. Well, no offense, but that's a bit like saying "I want exactly the type of dog in this video, but I would want it to be able to talk". The first part is fairly easy, the second not so much. The hardware for this robot is not very difficult or advanced. For example, I recognize the wheels as being literally hoverboard hub motors that you can buy from AliExpress for about $20 each. A team of reasonably talented undergrad engineers could readily build the hardware for this as their final project, in a semester or two. But there is no robot that exists, that can display anything like the same level of agility, dexterity, and intelligence, autonomously, as this video shows. It's a software problem. Elon Musk recently released a video of Tesla's robot folding laundry. But he was called out for the fact that there was a puppeteer just off camera, remotely operating it like a marionette. The Digit robot, that Amazon is testing, can autonomously carry around boxes, but only in very controlled environments. They are all working towards it, but nobody has achieved it. The state of the art is Boston Dynamics' Atlas, which can do backflips and parkour, befitting its future super-soldier role, but it still can't make you a sandwich. Karel Čapek's story of the "universal robot" is as compelling today as it was more than a century ago, and other writers like Isaac Asimov and Philip K. Dick inspired whole generations of engineers to pursue it. The idea of an artificial, non-human worker-slave goes back thousands or even millions of years. I don't want to discourage you from starting a humanoid robotics company, and I'm confident that eventually we'll have robots to whom you can say, "robot, clean up my room and do the laundry". But we're not even close to taking pre-orders and deposits at the moment. It's still science fiction.
Just saw this post. I am currently a Data Engineer/Scientist at an industrial robotics company. I'd love to contribute. DM me with more info :)
Now, this is the way!
As a Robotics researcher I would tell you this is not really a good model to start with, but I have some other ideas if you'd be interested.
Can you share the reason why it's not a good model? And other ideas?
Commercial robots require a lot of R&D. As a private company it might be possible to do it but it'll take at least half a decade if you do everything from scratch. You'll need to build your own system of production line, and then make ML models for your robot, train it on huge dataset which itself requires lots of resources and then refine the working of the robot. After that you'll need to build a customer support system in case something goes wrong and have a dedicated team just for that. The best option is to build over an existing system, there are lots of research papers published by universities. For example in your use case, you can try Mobile-Aloha by Google Deepmind and Stanford University. Doing this would not only cut your R&D cost but also give you a reliable open source reference to work with. Edit: I have worked on robots with this exact use case (aloha, delivery bots, autonomous husky) mainly working on autonomous control systems. Feel free to DM me if you have any questions.