3 ms·

It's a nice piece of machinery. Looks like they finally went all-electric and got rid of the hydraulics. The new model is much less bulky. The task it is doing

It's a nice piece of machinery. Looks like they finally went all-electric and got rid of the hydraulics. The new model is much less bulky. The task it is doing is undemanding. It's just moving things from one set of large slots to another. No need for precision placement, unstructured bin-picking, or object separation. If it could pick up engine covers from the messy pile seen atop one of the racks and slot them into the storage unit, that would be more impressive. It's cool to see this done with a humanoid, but off the shelf industrial robots could do that job. This is the same place where Rethink Robotics got stuck. They could do simple object movements in mostly-structured situations, but so can lots of other simpler approaches. Amazon, despite substantial efforts, still doesn't have full robot picking. About two years ago, Amazon announced their "Sparrow" picking robot. But that seems to be experimental. It's not seen in videos of Amazon warehouses in 2024. Amazon is using the Agility humanoid, but only experimentally.[1] This is how Amazon currently does picking.[2] Racks of product come to the picker on robotic platforms. The picking system projects a light square on the space in the rack from which the picker should take the product. The picker picks the item, waves it under a barcode scanner, and drops it in an outgoing bin. Repeat for 8 hours. The job requires no more than a room-temperature IQ. Machines should think. People should work. Amazon keeps trying to automate that step. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8IdbodRG14 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8IdbodRG14 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsIjagFEv84 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsIjagFEv84

qwertox 2y ago
> The task it is doing is undemanding. Have you noticed how in second 13 it rotates the lower body clockwise while the upper body rotates counter-clockwise in order to optimize the movements to archive the goal? All (bipedal/quadrupedal) robots I've seen behave either like an animal or a human, but this one is something else. Imagine the inverse kinematics required to perform such a movement, and how precise even the slight left foot's clockwise rotation is. It does these very uncanny movements multiple times in the video, this video less about moving that thing from here to there than about how it does it. Also the recovery it had when it failed to insert one of the objects.
- sfvisser 2y ago
  > Have you noticed how in second 13 it rotates the lower body clockwise while the upper body rotates counter-clockwise in order to optimize the movements to archive the goal? Could be a fancy optimization of course, but could as well be a side effect of a decoupled planning of the locomotion part and the upper body pick and place. Algo could be: plan a path for a lower body motion from pose (4dof) A to pose B. And given pose B plan the upper body place of the tray in the target. If no constraints are broken plan both in parallel so it looks like one smooth behavior. Obviously, I don’t know :)
- ASalazarMX 2y ago
  There's something weird in its movement optimization, towards the middle it surprises the camera person by needlessly walking too close to it, a couple of steps away from the destination slots. Nevertheless, it fascinating how the legs/torso/head spin in different directions. It's scary even if you know it is physically weaker than its hydraulic cousins.
- BugsJustFindMe 2y ago
  > Also the recovery it had when it failed to insert one of the objects. You mean the unnecessarily violent jerking motion it does for no great reason at 1:22 instead of gently trying again?
tdeck 2y ago
> The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding or to exercise his invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become. - Adam Smith
Isamu 2y ago
On the shift from hydraulic to electric: for years Marc Raibert and others at Boston Dynamics expressed doubts that a non-hydraulic humanoid could be made to perform as well in that package. Because of actuator density- a humanoid has a high number of actuators. Also power density, and they did a lot of work in molding the hydraulic actuators directly into the arms and legs to make them compact. The bulk is all in the backpack pumps, power pack, etc. So this move to all-electric represents real growth in Boston Dynamics being able to make compact motors that meet their needs of performance. I am betting this new robot is less capable of the explosive dynamics of the old one. I am not expecting dance performances and backflips from this one right away. But I am expecting them to work toward that kind of performance.
- londons_explore 2y ago
  Hydraulics have a massive benefit that the actual actuators have amazing power density - and the actual bulky hydraulic pump and valves can be far away. Also, the pump can be shared with many actuators, making the whole system smaller and lighter when you have 50 actuators and only need to use 5 of them at full power at a time. Electrics win for energy efficiency and no-leaky-fluid, and also are improving pretty quick.
- Animats 2y ago
  > On the shift from hydraulic to electric: for years Marc Raibert and others at Boston Dynamics expressed doubts that a non-hydraulic humanoid could be made to perform as well in that package. Then Schaft won the DARPA Robotic Challenge in 2013 with their all-electric humanoid robot with liquid-cooled motors. They beat out Boston Dynamics' Atlas. Then Google bought Schaft. Google got bored with robotics, couldn't find a buyer for them, and Schaft was shut down, along with several other Google robotics acquisitions. [1] https://www.darpa.mil/program/darpa-robotics-challenge https://www.darpa.mil/program/darpa-robotics-challenge
mhb 2y ago
In [2], it's very surprising that the system is designed so that the worker must use steps to access bins on the transporter. Since this seems so obviously and counterintuitively bad for the workflow I assume there must be a very, very good reason for it. Would be interesting to know what it is.
- Animats 2y ago
  That surprised me, too, because a previous version of the system used smaller bin stacks and no steps. Amazon could have gone in the other direction. The layout could be designed so that the picker sits on a swivel stool and never stands at all. That's what they do when they test robot picking - there's one human-sized robot arm on a turntable mount doing the picking. Humans would get fat with that layout.
londons_explore 2y ago
The visualization of a 3d model of the engine cover and the points of the racking system highlighted as spheres in the visualization shows quite how much task-specific code there must be in this demo. I don't think you'd be able to get this to move other objects or to other types of shelves without getting a programmer involved for a few days at least.

qwertox 2y ago

> The task it is doing is undemanding. Have you noticed how in second 13 it rotates the lower body clockwise while the upper body rotates counter-clockwise in order to optimize the movements to archive the goal? All (bipedal/quadrupedal) robots I've seen behave either like an animal or a human, but this one is something else. Imagine the inverse kinematics required to perform such a movement, and how precise even the slight left foot's clockwise rotation is. It does these very uncanny movements multiple times in the video, this video less about moving that thing from here to there than about how it does it. Also the recovery it had when it failed to insert one of the objects.

sfvisser 2y ago
> Have you noticed how in second 13 it rotates the lower body clockwise while the upper body rotates counter-clockwise in order to optimize the movements to archive the goal? Could be a fancy optimization of course, but could as well be a side effect of a decoupled planning of the locomotion part and the upper body pick and place. Algo could be: plan a path for a lower body motion from pose (4dof) A to pose B. And given pose B plan the upper body place of the tray in the target. If no constraints are broken plan both in parallel so it looks like one smooth behavior. Obviously, I don’t know :)
ASalazarMX 2y ago
There's something weird in its movement optimization, towards the middle it surprises the camera person by needlessly walking too close to it, a couple of steps away from the destination slots. Nevertheless, it fascinating how the legs/torso/head spin in different directions. It's scary even if you know it is physically weaker than its hydraulic cousins.
BugsJustFindMe 2y ago
> Also the recovery it had when it failed to insert one of the objects. You mean the unnecessarily violent jerking motion it does for no great reason at 1:22 instead of gently trying again?

tdeck 2y ago

> The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding or to exercise his invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become. - Adam Smith

Isamu 2y ago

On the shift from hydraulic to electric: for years Marc Raibert and others at Boston Dynamics expressed doubts that a non-hydraulic humanoid could be made to perform as well in that package. Because of actuator density- a humanoid has a high number of actuators. Also power density, and they did a lot of work in molding the hydraulic actuators directly into the arms and legs to make them compact. The bulk is all in the backpack pumps, power pack, etc. So this move to all-electric represents real growth in Boston Dynamics being able to make compact motors that meet their needs of performance. I am betting this new robot is less capable of the explosive dynamics of the old one. I am not expecting dance performances and backflips from this one right away. But I am expecting them to work toward that kind of performance.

londons_explore 2y ago
Hydraulics have a massive benefit that the actual actuators have amazing power density - and the actual bulky hydraulic pump and valves can be far away. Also, the pump can be shared with many actuators, making the whole system smaller and lighter when you have 50 actuators and only need to use 5 of them at full power at a time. Electrics win for energy efficiency and no-leaky-fluid, and also are improving pretty quick.
Animats 2y ago
> On the shift from hydraulic to electric: for years Marc Raibert and others at Boston Dynamics expressed doubts that a non-hydraulic humanoid could be made to perform as well in that package. Then Schaft won the DARPA Robotic Challenge in 2013 with their all-electric humanoid robot with liquid-cooled motors. They beat out Boston Dynamics' Atlas. Then Google bought Schaft. Google got bored with robotics, couldn't find a buyer for them, and Schaft was shut down, along with several other Google robotics acquisitions. [1] https://www.darpa.mil/program/darpa-robotics-challenge https://www.darpa.mil/program/darpa-robotics-challenge

mhb 2y ago

In [2], it's very surprising that the system is designed so that the worker must use steps to access bins on the transporter. Since this seems so obviously and counterintuitively bad for the workflow I assume there must be a very, very good reason for it. Would be interesting to know what it is.

Animats 2y ago
That surprised me, too, because a previous version of the system used smaller bin stacks and no steps. Amazon could have gone in the other direction. The layout could be designed so that the picker sits on a swivel stool and never stands at all. That's what they do when they test robot picking - there's one human-sized robot arm on a turntable mount doing the picking. Humans would get fat with that layout.

londons_explore 2y ago

The visualization of a 3d model of the engine cover and the points of the racking system highlighted as spheres in the visualization shows quite how much task-specific code there must be in this demo. I don't think you'd be able to get this to move other objects or to other types of shelves without getting a programmer involved for a few days at least.