The march of the humanoid robots
European startups are at the leading edge of the development of humanoid robots but are facing strong competition coming up from China as fast followers.
In the same way that China capitalised on its development of motors and battery technology to dominate the electric car business, so that same expertise is being applied to another greenfield market, humanoid robots. There are 3400 startups working on all kinds of robotics technology according to the Hamilton Centre on Industrial Strategy in the US.
The missing element is of course the AI and software, which is where Tesla has been making its own particular moves. The recent demonstration of its Tesla Optimus humanoid robots that turned out to be remote controlled has led many people to downplay the developments in the technology and dismiss the potential.
That has hit companies such as 1X in Norway, PAL Robotics in Spain and Engineered Arts in the UK that are at the leading edge of development. Figure AI and Boston Dynamics in the US are the most well developed, but there are other startups such as Apptronik in Austin.
1X has shown the beta of its Neo robot, and Figure AI has just shipped its second generation design that it says is ‘commercially viable’. This is already being used by BMW at its plant in South Carolina and provides vital data on the use of humanoid robots in industrial applications.
China is looking to tap into its skills base on the back of its Embodied Intelligent Robot Action Plan. This has three focus areas, robotic body components, motion control and balance, and AI.
The hardware can require up to 28 degrees of freedom, and the latest system on chip devices such as the RZ/T2H from Renesas Electronics are very much aiming at these applications with its latest controller chip, while GPU Nvidia sees this as a key area for its embedded AI chips as well as its Isaac Sim tools for training them with synthetic data.
Fourier Intelligence in Shanghai has developed its second generation GR-2 bipedal robot with 53 degrees of freedom, and lays claim to the first commercial humanoid robot being used by car makers. Chinese car manufacturers can also preorder humanoid prototypes from UBtech in Shenzhen, and the company says it has received 500 orders to date. However car makers, including Li Auto, are also developing their own humanoid robots.
Unitree Robotics has its own 4D LiDaR laser sensing technology for 360 degree perception and localisation alongside the Intel RealSense stereo camera. This is used in the H1 robot that is able to run at up to 3.3m/s and the company is aiming to increase this to 5m/s using its custom motor with a 15Ah battery pack.
Shanghai Kepler Robotics showed its Forerunner K1 bipedal robot at CES last year, and has made extensive software and hardware modifications for the K2. The company is working with 50 target customers on real-world scenarios in intelligent manufacturing, warehousing and logistics, where the K2 has ‘nearly’ mastered the ability to autonomously complete specific tasks.
Engine AI in Shenzen has also launched its PM01 robot, based on Orin compute modules from Nvidia. These humanoid robots will be tested in car factories through 2025, and the expectation is that it will take two to five years for the technology to migrate from industrial to consumer says Goldman Sachs in its uprated forecast.
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