Meet Digit, the humanoid robot from Agility Robotics

Speaker 1: Meet digit, the humanoid robot whose creators want it delivering packages to your doorstep today, we're gonna take a look at how digit works, what it can do and how it compares to some of the other humanoid robots. Currently in development, let's get into it. Digits been developed by a company called agility, robotic. The latest video of digit shows that the robot is now available for work in warehouse environments. We talked with the company's chief technology officer, Jonathan Hurst [00:00:30] to learn more. Speaker 2: It's not just an interesting tech demo. We've shown a lot of that kind of thing. In the past. We've talked about the vision of having robots operating in human environments, uh, working in our spaces, we've shown the vision of digit delivering things to your door. And I guess what's different now is that this is the robots being deployed in the next two years. The first is this pulling totes or boxes in kind of a back room in the warehouse, in the big logistics centers that are doing all this kind of sorting and picking and moving and placing. The next thing is like trailer alone. [00:01:00] Once you've really got it down. As we build up over time, the intelligence, the capability of the robot to be certified safe around people, as it gets closer and closer kinds of interactions, autonomous delivery of things to your doorstep is straightforward. Just having the awareness and having the practice and having a reliability after deploying thousands of, of robots in back rooms where it's a little bit more structured is sort of the path outside. You know, the path to those next tasks. Speaker 1: Digit is [00:01:30] prepared to reverse things like stairs, grass, and slopes, which it might find in its future delivery journeys. Thanks to the work that agility robotics put in on its previous robot. Speaker 2: Cassie is not useful for anything other than understanding and researching like a multi motion research. So the plan was always to do what we're doing right Speaker 1: Now to help it navigate different work environments. Digit includes two kinds of computer vision. Speaker 2: So we have a set of, uh, depth sensors. It [00:02:00] kind of give us an idea of all of the surface planes around us, and we need to Cindy like right in front of us and down, and that allows the robot to know where it's going to be able to step or where it's gonna be able to place its manipulators to pick something up or move something. There's also a LIDAR sensor on board, which is a much longer range and kind of tells it where the walls are, where people might be, uh, allows it to localize itself within that map, know where it's, Speaker 1: As we've seen on what the future, there have been a handful of other humanoid robots making headlines [00:02:30] from the acrobatic Atlas made by Boston dynamics to the recently announced, but not yet built Tesla bot. I asked Jonathan what separates digit from the competition. And here's what he had to say about that. Well, Speaker 2: The Tesla bot isn't one, right? It will be someday. And I, at least the vision that's been announced on that is the same thing we've been talking about for years and years and what we've been building towards with our vision robot Atlas. The goal is to be a very, very powerful, very strong, um, [00:03:00] uh, push the limits of performance. And you know, what we're doing in agility, robotics with digit is robots that work in human spaces, robots that work with people. So it's a, it's a different set of goals. There's some pretty big technology differences as well. Digit is very efficient. It's able to last quite a long time on a battery. Actually most of the power draw is from computing, not Speaker 1: Locomotion, a spokesperson from Boston dynamics confirmed that Atlas's primary function is as a research platform for developing new hardware and software. That more [00:03:30] power is drawn from actuation than from computing and that the battery life on Atlas is about 30 minutes, depending on what activities are being performed. Tesla did not respond to a request for comment now back to digit. So how much does one of these things cost Speaker 2: The complexity of the robot? If you look at what it is and how it's manufactured is kind of on the order of like an electric motorcycle plus a laptop. So look at, you know, about what it costs at volume for a pretty nice electric motorcycle and a laptop. And that's [00:04:00] kind of the price point that digits going to get to at that kind of Speaker 1: Thought while digit robots continue their March into the workplace. Jonathan left me with his vision for how these robots might someday integrate into our lives. Speaker 2: I expect to have a robot that's gonna be able to help me around the house with semi general things. You know, I guess I have a robot that helps me around the house. Now I, I have a Roomba and I have, um, mopping. I don't remember what brand it is, but it's our mopping robot. No, honestly, I have a dishwasher. That's clearly a robot, but they're pretty specific. The, the [00:04:30] value of digit is its generality. You know, at some point it's gonna be able to help you carry the groceries in. It's gonna actually, I think that'll, yeah, that'll be entirely automating. You're gonna, who's gonna be of the logistics chain coming into your home. Even something like a telepresence machine, you know, right now I talk with my parents or I talk with my, my sister who are far away, but we will have the telepresence robots. So you kind of log into some of these robot and then you can hang out with me. You know, I can be outside in the garden, working on things [00:05:00] and my robot I'll be out there with me and that'll be my daughter, or that'll be a family member or a friend. And, you know, we're, we're a thousand miles away, but, uh, but interacting well Speaker 1: As always, thanks so much for watching. I'm your host, Jesse, or see you next time with the family.