Latest news with #Apptronik
ABC News
17 hours ago
- Science
- ABC News
China's humanoid robots compete with United States in 'space race of our time'
Two humanoid robots face off in a ring in the world's first humanoid robot kick-boxing competition. The high-tech robots from a Chinese robotics firm jab and kick each other, and spring back onto their feet after being knocked down. While not exactly on par with professional human kickboxers, it's an impressive display of agility and balance. The show in May came after yet another "world first", as Chinese state media called it, when humanoid robots jogged alongside thousands of half-marathon runners in Beijing in April. Then there was the humanoid robot display during a Spring Festival Gala event, when a group of bots dressed in red and white costume vests performed a routine alongside dancers on stage. State-run media and robotics companies in China have been celebrating advances in the capabilities of humanoid robots — robots that look human with arms and legs — as companies from China compete with robot developers from the United States. Humanoid robots were seen to have so much potential in part because they could adapt to the world as it was, said Alan Burden, a PhD in design robotics. "There's also a cultural element which is very evident in a lot of science fiction — humanoids are compelling because they remind us of ourselves, which makes them easier to imagine in daily life, even if the technical reality is still catching up," said Dr Burden. Jeff Cardenas, chief executive of US robotics company Apptronik, called it "the space race of our time". While it's a race the US has been leading, China has been catching up. Beijing unveiled a national plan in 2023 to build a world-class humanoid robotics industry by 2027, part of President Xi Jinping's tech-led vision for the economy that includes electric vehicles, renewable energy and artificial intelligence. In March, the Chinese government announced it would set up a one trillion yuan ($214 billion) fund to support startups in areas such as AI and robotics. Experts say advances in artificial intelligence (AI) technology are helping take the technology to the next level. Chinese humanoid robot startup MagicLab chief executive Wu Changzheng told Reuters it was using new home-grown AI models like DeepSeek, Qwen and ByteDance's Doubao. "DeepSeek has been helpful in task reasoning and comprehension, contributing to the development of our robots' 'brains,'" Mr Wu told Reuters. This is despite the US attempting to restrict China's access to the best computer chips essential to training AI models. Claude Sammut, a computer science and engineering professor from the University of New South Wales, said China's clearest advantage was its domination of the manufacturing supply chain that makes the hardware. "You can find everything you need in certain industrial hubs, so that's why they've been able to drive the cost down," said Professor Sammut. In 2024, 31 Chinese companies unveiled 36 new humanoid models, versus only eight released by US companies that same year, according to a Morgan Stanley report published this year. "Our research suggests China continues to show the most impressive progress in humanoid robotics where startups are benefiting from established supply chains, local adoption opportunities, and strong degrees of national government support," said the report. The potential of humanoid robots to transform economies and societies is expected to be huge. Beijing is aiming for a new industrial revolution where many factory tasks would be performed by humanoid robots. Despite concerns about the impact on jobs, Beijing sees the technology as key to plugging labour shortages in other areas as well. They include elderly care where demand is increasing as China's 1.4 billion population ages. In Australia, robotics company Andromeda Robotics has created a humanoid robot called Abi to work in aged care facilities. Andromeda co-founder mechatronics engineer Grace Brown started Abi during the pandemic, when she found herself isolated and lonely during lockdowns in Melbourne and watching lots of Disney and Pixar movies. "At the time I wanted to build something that was very much like a Pixar character, one that's warm and friendly and approachable. "That was the inception for Abi." Ms Brown believes humanoid robots, companion robots like Abi, will redefine relationships in future. "The vision that we've always believed that was inevitable is that in the future, every single person, in every single continent, is going to have access to their own personal, home companion robot." And it's not long until humanoid robots have a breakthrough moment. "That's going to be like the iPhone or a ChatGPT moment for humanoid robots. "And it's very near." Despite the predictions, some believe humanoid robots still have a long way to go before they become part of everyday life. While robots have demonstrated multiple skills such as sorting objects, cleaning, lifting, and recent advances in artificial intelligence have improved the degree of autonomy in humanoid robots, there is a lot robots still can't do. Even basic physical tasks have yet to be mastered by some of the most advanced humanoids, like Tesla's Optimus. "For example, it takes Optimus almost 10 seconds to put an egg into an egg cooker," explained a US government report from October 2024. Professor Sammut said the robot demonstrations in China had mostly been "flashy demos to show off the hardware". He said the biggest recent improvements in humanoid robots had been in "reinforcement learning". In the past it had been difficult to hand program robots to do "fancy" things like boxing, but now robots could be taught, he explained. This would make humanoid robots useful in the home because robots could learn by themselves. US tech billionaire Brett Adcock has said the aim for humanoid robot developers is for people to be able to talk to robots who can then implement requested tasks. "The end-state for this is you really want the default UI [user interface] to be speech," said Mr Adcock, founder of robotics company Figure AI, which is building a general-purpose humanoid robot. Developers were also using generative AI to enable humanoid robots to better understand requests, then create plans to complete tasks, explained Professor Sammut. "There's still a fair bit of work to do on that because the generative models can produce stuff that isn't necessarily true," he added. Professor Sammut said economics and cost was another major barrier. "Right now, I don't see robots coming down to, like, the price of a phone," he said. "So it's more like buying a car than buying a phone." Despite investments from China, Robert Potter, a visiting fellow with Australian National University and a cyber security expert, said there were good reasons the democratic world "has the edge" in the humanoid robot race. Mr Potter, co-founder of an advisory firm which worked with the United States Defense Department, said China mostly copied innovations. "Areas where they have done well such as camera-based AI and surveillance are areas where the state is a larger market in China than in the democratic world," he added. Professor Sammut questioned whether humanoid robots more broadly would ever fulfil their promise. "Really the big question is, how useful are they going to be?" he asked. "It's really not quite clear what the end goal is, because [industry] is producing this great looking technology but exactly how they can be deployed, people are still working it out." Dr Burden said humanoid robots were probably at the peak of inflated expectations in the "hype cycle". "The next few years will show whether that hype turns into usefulness or evolves into another type of emerging technology," he said. ABC/Reuters
Top Gear
a day ago
- Automotive
- Top Gear
Here are nine humanoid robots used by carmakers and no we're not scared at all
Advertisement Agibot's got a whole portfolio of humanoid robots, but it's the A2 that caught BYD's eye. The machine is 169cm tall (5'7"), weighs 69kg and has a turning radius of 60cm... and a great sense of humour? Cool Tinder profile. Agibot's A2 runs on a 700wH battery, capable of two hours' work before it needs a recharge. Robots tire too? Who knew. Advertisement - Page continues below Apptronik Apollo (Mercedes-Benz) Apptronik's Apollo - now strutting its stuff in Mercedes-Benz factories - is less sci-fi overlord, more blue-collar bot with ambition. Merc reckons the 170cm tall machine lightens the human load; it walks, it lifts, it learns, and crucially, it doesn't whinge about the weekend's footy results every Monday morning. You might like Atlas is made by Boston Dynamics, enjoying partnerships with a number of carmakers including Audi, BMW, Tesla and Hyundai. Atlas's six-foot-two hydraulic predecessor retired in April 2024, replaced by a fully electric version. Crucially, it's the only robot that has a pet dog called Spot. Advertisement - Page continues below Chinese carmaker Chery partnered with Aimoga to deploy 'Mornine'. Rocking a set of blond locks and that fetching pair of blue glasses, she's helping to sell cars at a Malaysian dealership. Although her dynamic movement is a little awkward, we're told she'll be a three-phase evolution. Beginning, middle, end? Powered by an all-solid-state battery with a six-hour runtime, Guangzhou Automobile Company's GoMate stands at 1.4 meters on four wheels and towers to 1.75 meters on two. The otherworldly rollerblader moonwalks and wheelies in one fluid motion, and limited production is planned for 2026. Reckon it'll be ready to [robot] rumble with the others? Unitech G1 (Great Wall Motor) Though Great Wall Motor has partnered with Unitree to work out how best to deploy the tech in factories, you could own your very own G1 for about £24,000, courtesy of the world wide web. The Unitree G1 bot dances better than most blokes bordering the floor of the local disco - with movements reminiscent of Mickey Mouse with those gloves and shoes on. Tesla's Optimus is set to cost less than £20,000 and hit production lines in mass numbers from 2026. But let's not get too starry-eyed. Right now, it's a toddler with ambition - walking, waving, maybe stacking boxes if it's feeling cooperative. Elon reckons it'll change the world; for now, it's changing batteries. Advertisement - Page continues below A 1.7-metre-tall Swiss Army knife in a shiny suit, UBTech's Walker S1 is armed with 41 servo joints, superhuman algorithmic perception, and a brain powered by a large language model. Like its peers, Walker S1 can lift boxes, sort parts, and even dodge obstacles for the likes of Audi, BYD, Nio and VW. The question is, can this robotic Bear Grylls do the moonwalk yet? Xpeng's Iron (man-bot) looks like it walked out of a Marvel film and straight into a factory. It stands 1.78 metres tall, and features 200 degrees of freedom along with a spine that flexes like a yoga instructor. It's driven by a 40-core AI chip, giving it the brains to match its brawn. Sure, it's still in prototype mode, but if this is the future of robotics, then the machines are arriving in style. Advertisement - Page continues below
The Hindu
3 days ago
- Business
- The Hindu
Google DeepMind unveils on-device robotics model
Google DeepMind has unveiled a Gemini Robotics on-device Vision Language Action (VLA) model that can run locally on robotic devices. The AI model is built for general purpose tasks and can run without the internet. This is Google's first VLA model that has made available for fine-tuning. Developers can sign up for the tester programme and access the software kits. This new model comes two months after the search giant released its Gemini Robotics model based on Gemini 2.0's multimodal reasoning and real-world understanding of the physical world. The flagship model can run both on-device and on the cloud, and is built for bi-pedal robots. The model can also be customised for different robotic form factors. 'While we trained our model only for ALOHA robots, we were able to further adapt it to bi-arm Franka FR3 robot and the Apollo humanoid robot by Apptronik,' the company said in a blog post. With the bi-arm Franks, the VLA model can perform other tasks like folding clothes or work on industrial belt assembly tasks too.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Yahoo
Google rolls out new Gemini model that can run on robots locally
Google DeepMind on Tuesday released a new language model called Gemini Robotics On-Device that can run tasks locally on robots without requiring an internet connection. Building on the company's previous Gemini Robotics model that was released in March, Gemini Robotics On-Device can control a robot's movements. Developers can control and fine-tune the model to suit various needs using natural language prompts. In benchmarks, Google claims the model performs at a level close to the cloud-based Gemini Robotics model. The company says it outperforms other on-device models in general benchmarks, though it didn't name those models. In a demo, the company showed robots running this local model doing things like unzipping bags and folding clothes. Google says that while the model was trained for ALOHA robots, it later adapted it to work on a bi-arm Franka FR3 robot and the Apollo humanoid robot by Apptronik. Google claims the bi-arm Franka FR3 was successful in tackling scenarios and objects it hadn't 'seen' before, like doing assembly on an industrial belt. Google DeepMind is also releasing a Gemini Robotics SDK. The company said developers can show robots 50 to 100 demonstrations of tasks to train them on new tasks using these models on the MuJoCo physics simulator. Other AI model developers are also dipping their toes in robotics. Nvidia is building a platform to create foundation models for humanoids; Hugging Face is not only developing open models and datasets for robotics, it is actually working on robots too; and Mirae Asset-backed Korean startup RLWRLD is working on creating foundational models for robots.
The Verge
4 days ago
- Business
- The Verge
Google DeepMind's optimized AI model runs directly on robots
Google DeepMind is rolling out an on-device version of its Gemini Robotics AI model that allows it to operate without an internet connection. The vision-language-action model (VLA) comes with dexterous capabilities similar to the one released in March, but Google says 'it's small and efficient enough to run directly on a robot.' The flagship Gemini Robotics model is designed to help robots complete a wide range of physical tasks, even if it hasn't been specifically trained on them. It allows robots to generalize new situations and understand and respond to commands, as well as perform tasks that require fine motor skills. Carolina Parada, head of robotics at Google DeepMind, tells The Verge that the original Gemini Robotics model uses a hybrid approach, allowing it to operate on-device and on the cloud. But with this device-only model, users can access offline features that are almost as good as those of the flagship. The on-device model can perform several different tasks out of the box, and it can adapt to new situations 'with as few as 50 to 100 demonstrations,' according to Parada. Google only trained the model on its ALOHA robot, but the company was able to adapt it to different robot types, such as the humanoid Apollo robot from Apptronik and the bi-arm Franka FR3 robot. 'The Gemini Robotics hybrid model is still more powerful, but we're actually quite surprised at how strong this on-device model is,' Parada says. 'I would think about it as a starter model or as a model for applications that just have poor connectivity.' It could also be useful for companies with strict security requirements. Alongside this launch, Google is releasing a software development kit (SDK) for the on-device model that developers can use to evaluate and fine-tune it — a first for one of Google DeepMind's VLAs. The on-device Gemini Robotics model and its SDK will be available to a group of trusted testers while Google continues to work toward minimizing safety risks.
