Several robotics experts watching saw a project that seemed to be rapidly accelerating. Stefanie Tellex, an assistant professor at Brown University, said: “Basically nothing groundbreaking, but they’re doing great things.
Henrik Christensenwho studies robotics and AI at UC Davis, calls Tesla’s home-grown humanoid “a good early design,” but adds that the company has not yet presented evidence that it can perform navigation, holding basic grip or operation. Jessy Grizzle, a professor at the University of Michigan robotics lab who works on legged robots, said that although it’s still early days, Tesla’s project seems to be progressing well. “To go from being a man in a suit to real hardware in 13 months is pretty unbelievable,” he said.
Grizzle says Tesla’s experience in building cars and expertise in areas like batteries and electric motors can help it improve robotics hardware. During the event, Musk announced that the robot would eventually cost around $20,000 – a staggering number based on the project’s ambitions and significantly cheaper than any Tesla vehicle – but did not give release timeframe.
Musk is also vague about who his customers will be, or which companies using Tesla might find a human figure in its own operations. A robot with advanced manipulative capabilities may be important to maketake on auto parts that are not yet automated, such as running wires through a dashboard or working carefully with flexible plastic parts.
In an industry where margins are as low as razors and other companies are providing tram In competition with Tesla, any advantage in manufacturing could prove to be important. But companies have been trying to automate these tasks for years without much success. And a quadruple design might not make much sense for such applications. Alexander Kernbaum, interim director of SRI Robotics, a research institute that previously developed a humanoid robot, says it only really makes sense for robots that can walk on foot in very difficult environments. complex. “Focusing on the feet is a sign that they’re looking to capture people’s imaginations rather than solve real-world problems,” he said.
Both Grizzle and Christensen have said they will monitor future Tesla demonstrations for signs of progress, particularly for evidence of the robot’s manipulative skills. Balancing on two feet when lifting and moving an object is natural for humans but challenging for machine engineers. “When you don’t know the mass of an object, you have to stabilize your body plus whatever you’re holding as you carry it and move it,” says Grizzle.
Wise will also be watching, and despite being battered so far, he hopes the project isn’t as out of place as Google’s ill-fated robotics company. get a comeback in 2013, which has drawn many researchers into projects that have never seen the light of day. The search giant’s popularity includes two companies working on anthropomorphism: Boston Dynamics, which sold out in 2017, and Schaft, which closed in 2018. “These projects continue. kept getting killed because, lo and behold, one day they woke up and the last name Wise said.
