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Robotics Technology

Agility Robotics Is Opening a Humanoid Robot Factory In Oregon (cnbc.com) 52

Posted by BeauHD from the beating-Tesla-to-the-punch dept.
Agility Robotics is wrapping up construction of a factory in Salem, Oregon, where it plans to mass produce its first line of humanoid robots, called Digit. Each robot has two legs and two arms and is engineered to maneuver freely and work alongside humans in warehouses and factories. CNBC reports: The 70,000-square-foot facility, which the company is calling the "RoboFab," is the first of its kind, according to Damion Shelton, co-founder and CEO of Agility Robotics. COO Aindrea Campbell, who was formerly Apple's senior director of iPad operations and an engineering manager at Ford, told CNBC that the facility will have a 10,000 unit annual max capacity when it's fully built out and will employ more than 500 people. For now, though, Agility Robotics is focused on the installation and testing of its first production lines.

Funded by DCVC and Playground Global among venture investors, Agility Robotics beat would-be competitors to the punch, including Tesla with its Optimus initiative, by completing development of production prototype humanoid robots and standing up a factory where it can mass produce them. Shelton told CNBC that his team developed Digit with a human form factor so that the robots can lift, sort and maneuver while staying balanced, and so they could operate in environments where steps or other structures could otherwise limit the use of robotics. The robots are powered with rechargeable lithium ion batteries.

One thing Digit lacks is a five-fingered hand -- instead, the robot's hands look more like a claw or mitten. [...] Digit can traverse stairs, crouch into tight spaces, unload containers and move materials onto or off of a pallet or a conveyor, then help to sort and divide material onto other pallets, according to Agility. The company plans to put the robots to use transporting materials around its own factory, Campbell said. Agility's preferred partners will be first to receive the robots next year, and the company is only selling -- not renting or leasing -- the systems in the near term.
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Agility Robotics Is Opening a Humanoid Robot Factory In Oregon

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  • Get rid of the pesky humans that might form a union or show initiative. in some sub-optimal way. Replace with robotics. Everybody wins. Especially the shareholders. But also the human who no longer has to deal with a boss yelling at them. That thought will comfort them as they starve to death and we're rid of them once and for all.

    • If only there was some way to regulate corporations. Oh well, I guess we are doomed.

    • Re:Standard corporate strategy (Score:5, Interesting)

      by RobinH ( 124750 ) on Tuesday September 19, 2023 @10:01AM (#63860000) Homepage
      Humans showing initiative doesn't seem to be a thing. Our plant is full of high school graduates making about $20/hr. They eat lunch in the same room as tradespeople like tool & die apprentices. To be a tool & die apprentice you take 2 more years of school, the math is no harder than high school math, the tuition is about 95% covered (we're in Canada) so your total cost is about $500, and you can choose to do it all at once or evenings and weekends but it takes a bit longer. It's a paid apprenticeship. We're always hiring tool & die apprentices. When you're done you'll almost double your hourly wage. But no, they'd rather catch parts falling off the end of a conveyor for a couple bucks over minimum wage.

      • I mean, that's one way to look at it. Another way is you have a plant full of high school graduates who are making a little extra money for the next stage of their life. They don't want to make a career out of tool & die whatevering.

        • Hell, I make $100k/yr as an inventory planner in the US and $40/hr in Canada at a job that won't follow me home at night sounds pretty attractive. Also apprentice tool&die leads to being a journeyman and that is another big pay bump.
      • I learned manual lathe, vertical and horizontal mill, welding with stick and wire, brazing, jig and tool making etc in high school. They teach these only in the night school classes now. I'm pretty sure an apprenticeship would have been available to me after high school for tool and die making, but that was in 1996 or so. I don't think many of the high school grads around here are interested in trades. Chicago does have some old school trades jobs, but I don't think that kind of work looks as good to the ki
        • I learned that stuff back in the 70's working in my step father's shop, he was an inventor. I find that having had that knowledge helped me sooooo much when working in other fields as well. Learning these trades is useful as it not only gives you a skill you can carry with you to wherever you wish, but also to better understand manufacturing, well-designed products, and good engineering, not to mention, it helps you locate the bad engineers when you become an engineering manager (as I did back in the 90's).
    • Good news boss, apart from the c-suite we've successfully replaced all our workers with robots. Now onto the next issue, no one seems to be buying our crap anymore.
      • No prob. Shirts go from 20 down to 2 Dollars thanks to savings in manufacturing. Easy for the government to give handouts, to smooth-out the transition, as no problem with inflation- at that rate. Instead of mind-numbing use of human time, we can experience and learn new things. It's been happening already over the past 20 years. Looking like it will pick up steam now. Be nice use all that extra capability to reverse eco damage. Thats the elephant in the room

    • UBI .. Decades ago, I had a coworker who was hired for basically data-entry. Anyway, he figured out how to replace his job entirely with a shell script. He kept that gig for nearly 2 years and finally quit out of boredom and running out of ways to annoy the rest of us. Anyway, that's what UBI can do with the right regulatory framework, a robot can be thought of as owned by the person whose "job" it replaced. He gets the salary that the robot would generate, and the company would make even more money because

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bjwest ( 14070 )

      Get rid of the pesky humans that might form a union or show initiative. in some sub-optimal way. Replace with robotics. Everybody wins. Especially the shareholders. But also the human who no longer has to deal with a boss yelling at them. That thought will comfort them as they starve to death and we're rid of them once and for all.

      This has been ongoing since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, and it has generally improved the quality of life for humanity in the long run. It may be a bit painful in the beginning, but it will do away with a lot of mundane and dangerous work.

    • It's just logic, why use a human if you can use a robot which can do the work better, faster and 24/7? That's how the whole industrial revolution is brought about, replacing humans with something more efficient. We, as a society, should have been preparing for the further advancements in robotics/AI a long time ago, and we didn't, which will be a problem for many people the coming decade(s). You're not still using an old telephone with a dialdisc and a typewriter to write a report, computers and smartphones

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Shakrai ( 717556 )

      Everybody wins. Especially the shareholders

      If you destroy the Middle Class there’s nobody left to buy your widgets and shareholders lose in the long run. There used to a concept called welfare capitalism [slashdot.org] that implicitly acknowledged this. Providing your workers with decent wages, benefits, and affordable housing expanded the markets for your own products and those of other industries that chose to copy your labor model. Half the housing stock in my hometown was built by welfare capitalists in the 1930s and 40s. They bought up land, develop

  • I am expecting this thing to break down, get stuck or need supervision otherwise very often.

    They'll probably be 50% as productive as a human (totally fine if 100% autonomous with 24 hour shifts) and need a human handler...

    The sole question of interest: What is the ratio of robot to handler?

    • The sole question of interest: What is the ratio of robot to handler?

      When you use up a human you just hire another one. When you use up a robot you have to pay to repair, replace, or refurbish.

      • Except the return on investment is much faster with a robot as with a human. What you as a human see deposited in your account at the end of the month is just half of what your employer has to pay. Humans can't be replaced that easily, as you have to guide them the first few weeks. Robots can continue immediately in full capacity. Also less safety measures needed on the workfloor if there aren't any humans working there. Robot's keep a steady workflow 24/7 until something is broken, but then you just activa

    • Probably be something similar to a self checkout lane at the grocery store. A single human who maintains a fleet of robotic workers.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Kokuyo ( 549451 )

        That's basically what I said. The economic viability is directly tied to how large of a "fleet"we're talking. Two? That would be rather bad. Two hundred? Now we're talking.

  • Not a lot of detail (Score:3)

    by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Tuesday September 19, 2023 @09:16AM (#63859870)

    Can it take a fall? Even more importantly, can it pick itself up afterwards? Does it require perfect custom objects to grab, or can it lift a variety of shapes, without damaging them? Can it stack a skid on a shrink wrap machine? Can it read a damaged label? How much of it's brain is onboard, how much on a wirelessly connected server? Can it take verbal direction / correction from a human, and can it identify who is authorized to give it certain types of instructions?

    And as much as they deride digits as unnecessary... this robot won't be able to apply labels or open a loading dock door.

    Oh... and can you put a RealDoll skin on it? ...just asking for a friend.

    • Re:Not a lot of detail (Score:4, Insightful)

      by MooseTick ( 895855 ) on Tuesday September 19, 2023 @10:15AM (#63860052) Homepage

      I remember a lot of those concerns when robots were introduced into the auto manufacturing process. There were concerns on whether they could weld properly, pick up parts reliably, and perform other needed tasks. Fast-foward a few years and they have replaced a sizable amount of the skilled labor in the process and brought quality and consistancy up considerably. Add to the fact that they can work 24/7, don't get injured, and don't cause HR issues; and you can see why they wre so pervasice. Its only a matter of time before they will be more common in most workplaces.

      And honestly, this is nothing new. In the end, robots are just machines. Before bull dozers people dug holes with shovels. Before blenders, people chopped up stuff by hand. Before forklifts, people manually lifted and moved heavy objects. Machines can replace people in boring, repetitive, dangerous tasks and that's a good thing. No one is going to feel bad when a robot replaces someone at the fry station at McDonalds.

      • Machines can replace people in boring, repetitive, dangerous tasks and that's a good thing.

        I'm familiar with the "buggy whips" argument, yet somehow I'm not convinced that replacing those jobs is ultimately a good thing. I think it was good in the past, but today it seems to me that we face running out of ways for humans to be gainfully employed.

        Now if all the wealth was more evenly distributed - and in "wealth" I include labour-saving devices and their economic benefits - then I'd be less worried. But when more and more wealth and control reside in the hands of fewer and fewer people, and the ma

        • "today it seems to me that we face running out of ways for humans to be gainfully employed"

          That reminds me of the famous quote from the buggy whip era. Charles H. Duell was the Commissioner of US patent office in 1899. Mr. Deull's most famous attributed utterance is that "everything that can be invented has been invented."

          Do you honestly believe people will ever run out of jobs they can and will pay others to do?
          Also, do you think tech should not be allowed if it aids in efforts that cost humans jobs?

          Sure,

      • There are orders of magnitude of difference between the two situations. An assembly line fixed robot with parts pre-organized on a conveyor is not a semi-autonomous free-roams humanoid stock mover.

        So far as I am aware, there is no reason to even use a humanoid form - in a warehouse you're far better off with a pair of loader arms on a swivel mounted on a pallet truck.

        If they've managed to make a general humanoid labour robot that's not just Slashdot news, that's front page of every science and news site ev

    • This cassette has special tape inside it that holds the movements of your new robot. You program in the help routines from this remote. Let me just plug that in, now all we need to do is act out the program, rewind the tape, put it in normal mode and run the program by depressing the play button.
       
      It's the latest in cyber. I'm very excited.

  • The hand/gripper leaves a lot to be desired though, then again nobody can seem to get that right from both a software and hardware/sensor perspective.

  • Can it speak Bocce?

  • I need to see it doing a job (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RobinH ( 124750 ) on Tuesday September 19, 2023 @10:14AM (#63860042) Homepage
    I work in automation. I program 6-axis robots and integrate them into manufacturing cells. I'm familiar with AGVs and conveyor systems. This looks like a really fancy piece of kit, but what can it do? I'm wracking my brain trying to think of a use for this thing around the plant where it won't just be getting in the way. It likely moves at about 1/3 the speed of a human for safety reasons. The places where we use humans for labour are almost entirely about using their dexterity. The advantage of a robot is that you can make an end effector customized to your task. One advantage of a human is their incredibly versatile hands. I don't think a mitten hand will compete.

    • One advantage of a human is their incredibly versatile hands. I don't think a mitten hand will compete.

      It hasn't even got a thumb.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Tx ( 96709 )

      I was just looking through the videos on their YouTube channel to see if there were any use-cases demonstrated. Other than taking boxes on and off shelves, and carrying them around, I don't see anything. I guess we'll see, but if there were useful tasks it could do right now, I think they'd put that on video, so I'm thinking they're not there yet. Like self-driving cars, they may be assuming that they're nearly there, only to find that the step from "nearly there" to "there" is rather harder than they thoug

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by bjwest ( 14070 )

        I was just looking through the videos on their YouTube channel to see if there were any use-cases demonstrated. Other than taking boxes on and off shelves, and carrying them around, I don't see anything. I guess we'll see, but if there were useful tasks it could do right now, I think they'd put that on video, so I'm thinking they're not there yet. Like self-driving cars, they may be assuming that they're nearly there, only to find that the step from "nearly there" to "there" is rather harder than they thought.

        You've just described a good portion of Amazon's work force. This would excel in a distribution center, and in a few years, will be perfect for stocking shelves in a department or grocery store. Pair this with self-driving delivery vans, and you just made a human free delivery service. I'm sure Walmart would love to turn all their stores into home delivery or parking lot pickup locations where no one entered other than the one or two people who work there. And it would drastically cut store losses and th

    • Is the problem that products don't get designed from an automated manufacture perspective?. I don't know if it's a people thing or a CAD thing, where the CAD tools don't seem to give a shit about ensuring it can be bot-made. In my opinion product design should consider robotic manufacturability way ahead of both function and form.

  • The line workers at my company need actual agility. They need to place boxes on arbitrarily placed carts based on what's in the box and the label on the cart. They do this while moving over and around pallets and carts in a very dynamic environment with narrow spaces. The packages aren't always rectangles and have many different weights and sizes. There are missing and bad labels. And they have to move fast enough to get the boxes through these spaces in time.I don't think my workplace is unique in these re
    • A lot of warehouses are in transition of changing the layout, storage and packaging of items so they are mich better suited for automation. Don't underestimate how good object recognition is. I'll bet my shoes ;) that your workplace can easily be transformed into a place for automation only, even already with current technology. Yes, it will take a big investment up front, but in the long run it's much more cost effective. But it's better to just build a new warehouse from the ground up, as you don't want t

  • Robotics Technology Agility Robotics Is Opening a Humanoid Robot Factory In Oregon

    As opposed to a human robot factory? Wake me up when the robots are operating the robot factory.

  • No offense to many humans but our shape is highly inefficient for warehouse work. We're unbalanced, top-heavy, and have unusual and overcomplicated stances when trying to lift things. That's why absolutely zero industrial machinery is shaped like us. This is a dumb gimmick and they're going to go bankrupt.
  • Well it's a start, these robots will get much better in the coming decade, and you will only get better insight in manufacturing these robots if you actually start doing it.
  • Aliens are humanoid. Robots are humaniform. Get it straight!

  • A few more steps to be worked out and we'll have a pleasure model replicant.

  • Every robot will be painstakingly hand made to our highest standards.

  • And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the direct result of permitting recreational psilocybin use.

  • The robot does not even have hands, and they call it digit?

    Without hands this robot will be very limited in what it is useful for. Like stacking boxes, but you can already buy a purpose built industrial robot that isn't designed just to mimic the human form. For getting actual work done in the industrial setting the human form is sub-optimal. Powering it with batteries, compared to dedicated wired-in industrial robots will require downtime just for swapping batteries. Can you train the robot to swap its ow

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