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Robotics

Tesla Bot Can Now Sort Objects Autonomously (interestingengineering.com) 54

Posted by BeauHD from the would-you-look-at-that dept.
The official Tesla Optimus account shared an update video showing the progress its humanoid robot has made since it was announced in August 2021. In a video that looks like CGI, you can see Optimus sorting blocks and performing some yoga poses, among other things. Interesting Engineering reports: The video begins with the Tesla Bot aka the Optimus robot performing a self-calibration routine, which is essential for adapting to new environments. It then shows how TeslaBot can use its vision and joint position sensors to accurately locate its limbs in space, without relying on any external feedback. This enables TeslaBot to interact with objects and perform tasks with precision and dexterity.

One of the tasks that Optimus demonstrates is sorting blue and green blocks into matching trays. Tesla Optimus can grasp each block with ease and sort them at a human-like speed. It can also handle dynamic changes in the environment, such as when a human intervenes and moves the blocks around. TeslaBot can quickly adjust to the new situation and resume its task. It can also correct its own errors, such as when a block lands on its side and needs to be rotated.

The video also showcases Tesla Bot's balance and flexibility, as it performs some yoga poses that require standing on one leg and extending its limbs. These poses are not related to any practical workloads, but they show how TeslaBot can control its body and maintain its stability. The video ends with a call for more engineers to join the Tesla Optimus team, as the project is still in development and needs more talent. There is no information on when TeslaBot will be ready for production or commercial use, but the video suggests that it is making rapid progress and using the same software as the Tesla cars.
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Tesla Bot Can Now Sort Objects Autonomously More

Tesla Bot Can Now Sort Objects Autonomously

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  • I'm thinking combine this with their brain implants (Neuralink) and turn people into robots!

    Sounds like an Elon-level plan. Why should Neuralink just be about people controlling machines?

  • ... sorted affair.

  • Probably solves the problem in memory, then moves the objects to match.
    • The tweet says: "fully end-to-end: video in, controls out."

      That means nobody coded up a sorting algorithm for it to use, or even a conceptual representation of the problem.

      But note, it's not "sorting" in the sense of ordering the objects. It is just moving them onto separate trays on the basis of their color.

      I say "just," but if you could use a general-purpose robot (not just the hardware, but also with no special-purpose software) to manipulate items of arbitrary shapes based on what it sees, that co

      • In the Real World, separating objects based on color, size, shape or other criteria is also considered "sorting," at least in English.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        It's a deeply unimpressive video, with obvious tricks to make it seem more impressive than it is. Much like all his other demo videos. Remember "full self driving" from 2017?

        The actions it performs are college level robotics class stuff. The robot is stationary so locating things on a fixed desk in front of it isn't too difficult, and neither is moving its limbs into position.

        They don't show it walking, which means they haven't got past the 2000s quality constipated shuffling that the live demo presented. T

    • I'm more interested in what sort of memory it's going to have of the dude messing with it, moving the blocks around towards the end of the video as it's trying to sort. When they rise up, he's the first to die.

  • The time is rapidly approaching where unskilled labour won't be an option for people who don't have the opportunity or capacity for skilled labour.

    A robot doesn't unionize, does not demand vacations, a family benefit plan, or a pension, or even prefer working during the day.

    We had better figure out how the economy will work when robots and scripts are doing all the low-skill work on which humans are losing their monopoly. Quickly.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      I'll consider "the future arrived" when bots can do common house chores, fetch a beer, and suck my ____"

      • The Japanese have dick-sucking robots in hospitals to collect sperm samples, so the technology does exist.

      • Right now that's actually just a matter of money. We already have robots that can do all the required component actions, but nobody (so far as we know) has put them all in one package in a suitably humanoid robot that is reliable and affordable.

        Walking, including up and down stairs, is solved. Opening doors is solved. Object recognition is solved. And picking up things without crushing or dropping them is solved. I'm not sure I'm ready to trust my delicate bits to their cold metal hands just yet, thoug

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • A baby has to learn from scratch. A robot can use the code of all those that preceded it, with adjustments for novel morphology. ...and having a robot walk from a storage closet to your couch to give you a BJ when you summon it does not require any intelligence on the part of the robot. I'm not sure why you think it does.

    • Blocks aren't that difficult. I'll be more impressed if this could sort laundry. Unfortunately objects that deform and only have definitive shapes in specific orientations are harder to work with than solid cubes. I don't know anyone employed in the cube sorting business that will be displaced as a result of this. Maybe some scientists could test a bunch of robots instead of rats, but this is really unskilled labor. If I had a robotic limb to do factory work, I'd want it performing very specific precision w

      • It's sounds funny, but laundry is a shockingly difficult problem for robotics. Objects that deform is just the start of it. To fold a towel, you have to remove it from the dryer or bin without picking up a second or third object unintentionally, identify the perimeter, follow the perimeter to two corners, optionally correct the orientation of the towel, and then execute the folding algorithm.

        It's ridiculously hard.
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

        • Thanks for sharing the video. Yes, folding clothing is definitely a hard problem for robots. I seem to remember a company that announced a laundry folding robot at CES, but later went bankrupt. I hope they can resurrect it via Kickstarter or some other funding method.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by hawk ( 1151 )

          >It's sounds funny, but laundry is a shockingly difficult problem for robotics.

          bah.

          I saw a documentary from sixty years ago showing a robot do this.

          I think the engineer's name was "Jane Hiswife" :)

          hawk

      • Maybe they're going to build it into their cars to organize pedestrians' body parts for the paramedics when they arrive.

    • The time is rapidly approaching where unskilled labour won't be an option for people who don't have the opportunity or capacity for skilled labour.

      A robot doesn't unionize, does not demand vacations, a family benefit plan, or a pension, or even prefer working during the day.

      We had better figure out how the economy will work when robots and scripts are doing all the low-skill work on which humans are losing their monopoly. Quickly.

      As close as FSD?

      I'm impressed from a technical perspective, but not from a "I can imagine deploying this in an industrial setting" perspective. Like I don't really know a day in the life of an Amazon warehouse worker, but I imagine the parts of the job that aren't already automated involve a lot more complicated tasks than slowly sorting coloured blocks.

      ps, I'd be curious to see how much work the word "autonomously" is doing in the block sorting. Like clearly the robot doesn't need the blocks to be pre-posi

    • In only a few years, we will have a robot picking organic strawberries instead of an organic picking organic strawberries. Finally, cheap and affordable organic strawberries for everyone!
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by RobinH ( 124750 )
      Take a look at population pyramids sometime. Birth rates are incredibly low. Global population is going to nosedive this century, and our ability to automate isn't going to keep up with the falling working population. We're going to have more and more non-working-age people (over 65) and fewer working-age people to support them. We need automation just to maintain the standard of living, and the truth is automation isn't going to be able to keep up with the decline.

  • If the robot were good enough, it could self-drive cars that didn't have FSD. OTOH, if he builds a robot that drives, that means the FSD software is already good enough. Maybe you want a robot. Maybe you want a car with FSD. Why not both? It could be... let's say... "transformative", or something.

  • Wake me up when the robot can open doors.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUOo8N9_iH0
  • ...Handle anything which isn't entirely predictable.

  • What a wonderful world we're moving into. Yogabots? ChatGPT?? Viagra??? How long will it be before even the oldest geek can look forward to getting lucky again!

  • ... Teslas will soon be increasingly be made without human labor at dramatic cost savings. No wonder the UAW is on strike.

  • When will it be available to sort the flatware out of my dishwasher?

  • It was human like speed if you're talking about a 2 year old's level of speed. And how hard it is for a camera to determine what color an object is and make decisions based on that? And it wasn't exactly that precise. If you notice around 0:24 it puts a blue block half on another block causing it to fall over and change orientation. All this looks like someone's senior CS project more than what you'd expect from a $1T tech company. It would have been impressive 30+ years ago, but come one.

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