3 ms·

>is it even plausible? The last commercial anthropomorphic was the Willow Garage PR2 back in 2010. It weighed 600 pounds, and had a wheeled base. Each arm had

>is it even plausible? The last commercial anthropomorphic was the Willow Garage PR2 back in 2010. It weighed 600 pounds, and had a wheeled base. Each arm had a max payload of 4 pounds. It cost $250,000. The company went bankrupt because there wasn't anything you could do with it. The tesla bot is supposed to be bipedal, only weigh 125 pounds, and have a "arm extend lift" of 10 lbs. Is that per arm, or both together? Even BD Atlas weighs 196 pounds, and it doesn't have hands! Like, any one of their numbers would be exceptional. All together, and you are definitely sacrificing something. Either onboard compute is minimal, or it has a battery life measured in dozens of minutes. Something. They claim a deadlift of 150 lbs. I don't want to say "impossible!", but... difficult? Just holding 150 lbs with any of the robotic hands you can buy on the market today would be hard or impossible. None of the five finger hands today are as compact as shown in the concept renders. If it does ship with a five finger hand, (stupid, pointlessly expensive) the forearms would be far bulkier. An easy bet is that the first gen will ship with a three finger gripper. That is, if it even ships at all. BD Handle is a much better design for a humanoid-ish industrial robot. It's going to be simpler, faster and lighter for the same payload as this hypothetical Tesla bot.

skee_0x4459 5y ago
i think this comment illuminates the issue. seems like an industry veteran (unconfirmed) thinks having the thing walking around is plausible but is confused about interaction. https://old.reddit.com/r/robotics/comments/p7t14o/tesla_reveals_its_new_irobot_style_robotic_servant/h9pofm5/ https://old.reddit.com/r/robotics/comments/p7t14o/tesla_reve...
- sbierwagen 5y ago
  Even assuming the robot existed, which it doesn't, (Maaaaybe it was tethered, so it didn't have to carry around batteries and a hydraulic pump) I'm quailing at the task of programming the thing. To match human performance would be decades of work for thousands of programmers. (The robot picks up a screwdriver, and a screw. Then the screw slips out of its fingers. Now what? It lines up the screw and the screwdriver. It applies torque. The head of the screw strips out. Now what? The pain of robotics is that you need to cover each and every little error case, because if you don't, the damn thing doesn't work, because it has no brain! This is why every industrial robot is massively overbuilt, and it's environment and fixturing is carefully simplified and fenced off, because error handling is such a pain in the real world, where a dropped item bounces away and hides under a bench or in an orientation where your gripper can't pick it up. 1 in 1000 is too high of an error rate. 1 in 10000 is too much. It has to function perfectly, every time, every grasp.) And the maintenance costs! Mechanical humanoid hands are terrible end effectors. All little moving parts and lousy tolerances. They would need constant repair and replacement. It couldn't possibly be cheaper than a human in 2021 or 2030.
rlt 5y ago
> Either onboard compute is minimal, or it has a battery life measured in dozens of minutes. For industrial applications you could probably have some sort of novel power system, like a tether from the ceiling or special floor that delivers power through the feet.

skee_0x4459 5y ago

i think this comment illuminates the issue. seems like an industry veteran (unconfirmed) thinks having the thing walking around is plausible but is confused about interaction. https://old.reddit.com/r/robotics/comments/p7t14o/tesla_reveals_its_new_irobot_style_robotic_servant/h9pofm5/ https://old.reddit.com/r/robotics/comments/p7t14o/tesla_reve...

sbierwagen 5y ago
Even assuming the robot existed, which it doesn't, (Maaaaybe it was tethered, so it didn't have to carry around batteries and a hydraulic pump) I'm quailing at the task of programming the thing. To match human performance would be decades of work for thousands of programmers. (The robot picks up a screwdriver, and a screw. Then the screw slips out of its fingers. Now what? It lines up the screw and the screwdriver. It applies torque. The head of the screw strips out. Now what? The pain of robotics is that you need to cover each and every little error case, because if you don't, the damn thing doesn't work, because it has no brain! This is why every industrial robot is massively overbuilt, and it's environment and fixturing is carefully simplified and fenced off, because error handling is such a pain in the real world, where a dropped item bounces away and hides under a bench or in an orientation where your gripper can't pick it up. 1 in 1000 is too high of an error rate. 1 in 10000 is too much. It has to function perfectly, every time, every grasp.) And the maintenance costs! Mechanical humanoid hands are terrible end effectors. All little moving parts and lousy tolerances. They would need constant repair and replacement. It couldn't possibly be cheaper than a human in 2021 or 2030.

rlt 5y ago

> Either onboard compute is minimal, or it has a battery life measured in dozens of minutes. For industrial applications you could probably have some sort of novel power system, like a tether from the ceiling or special floor that delivers power through the feet.