Technical Directions
Robotics coverage relating to manipulation.
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Figure's latest generation robot, F.03, has arrived at BMW Group Plant Spartanburg, demonstrating advanced dynamic whole-body control and sequencing use cases. Powered by Helix 02, the robot performs complex material manipulation tasks that require both precision and force, marking progress in embodied AI for manufacturing.
Boston Dynamics explores how football can inform robot movement by using human demonstrations and reinforcement learning to train Atlas to perform a complex 'Ghost Rabona' kick, highlighting the intersection of sports and robotics in developing dynamic, whole-body control.
Sanctuary AI has demonstrated zero-shot in-hand manipulation using their proprietary hydraulic hand, autonomously reorienting a lettered cube ten times without dropping it. This showcases successful simulation-to-reality transfer, overcoming challenges in simulating dexterous hands and highlighting the company's advanced robotic hardware and policy training capabilities.
Helix 02, a single neural system that controls the full body directly from pixels, now performs end-to-end living room cleanup, including tasks like cleaning surfaces, handling flexible objects, and bimanual manipulation. The system learns new capabilities through data without requiring new algorithms or specialized engineering.
PickNik announces the release of MoveIt Pro, a commercial robotics software platform built on the open-source MoveIt project. The update highlights new features such as support for FANUC and Kawasaki robots, integration with Meta Quest for AI data collection, Diffusion Policies for end-to-end AI training, and enhanced simulation capabilities with IMU and 3D Lidar support. The platform is designed for unstructured environments, providing tools for motion planning, grasping, perception, and behavior sequencing.
Sanctuary AI has demonstrated advanced manipulation skills using reinforcement learning to train dexterous policies for their high-performance hydraulic hands. The system successfully reorients objects in the real world under gravity and with added weight, showcasing the effectiveness of their approach. This represents the first successful transfer of such policies to five-fingered hands, highlighting the company's proprietary technology and hardware capabilities.
Sanctuary AI announced the integration of new tactile sensor technology into its Phoenix general purpose robots, enabling more precise and accurate execution of complex, touch-driven tasks. The sensors improve dexterity, allowing robots to perform tasks like blind picking and slippage detection, and are part of the company's strategy to address labor shortages with advanced physical AI.
NIST is launching the Agile Robotics for Industrial Automation Competition (ARIA) to improve robot agility in manufacturing. The competition, a joint effort with the IEEE Conference on Automation Science and Engineering, will focus on tasks such as failure recovery, automated planning, and plug-and-play robot integration. The goal is to reduce programming costs and increase adaptability for small and medium manufacturers.
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