California-based Figure, the makers of general-purpose humanoid robot Figure 01, released a video of its robot functioning at BMW Group’s Spartanburg Plant. Earlier this year, Figure had signed a commercial agreement with BMW Manufacturing Co. to deploy general purpose robots in automotive manufacturing environments.
Figure + BMW Group's Spartanburg Plant
→ Fully autonomous
→ AI-driven vision model
→ Neural Networks for all grasps pic.twitter.com/btBCi2gk7x— Figure (@Figure_robot) July 1, 2024
Interestingly, just a few weeks ago, Figure had shared an image of them shipping the humanoid to their first customer, which turned out to be the automotive giant.
Under the agreement that was signed in January, Figure had decided to pinpoint use cases for implementing its robots in automotive production during the first phase. Following the completion of this phase, Figure’s robots are deployed at BMW’s manufacturing facility in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
Source: X
Figure 01 Features
All manipulations shown in the video are driven by neural networks mapping pixels directly to actions. The company claims the humanoid to be fully autonomous.
The company further discusses Figure 01 features, listing neural networks to drive object manipulation by mapping camera pixels to robot actions, AI systems that precisely place sheet metal within tight <1 cm tolerances, and navigation achieved solely through simulated object training.
Humanoids in Auto Factories
One of the biggest use cases for general -purpose humanoids are in automotive factories. Other humanoid robots have already been implemented. For instance, Mercedes Benz has employed Apptonik robots in the manufacturing unit.
Similarly, Phoenix humanoid robots from Sanctuary AI will be deployed at Magna facility.
Figure continues to push in the robotics space and has committed to commercialise it. “Figure is an AI-first company into commercialisation and we’ll be pushing the boundaries of robot learning across our fleet,” said founder and CEO of Figure. He also said that the company will be pushing on ‘continuously running the robot for as long as possible.
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