Tesla Shares More Details About Optimus Humanoid Robot

At the second Tesla AI Day yesterday, co-founder and CEO Elon Musk and company engineers shared the progress they have made in developing the Optimus humanoid robot since last year.To get more news about Robots on Demand, you can visit glprobotics.com official website.

“I just want to set some expectations,” Musk began, addressing public skepticism. “As you know, last year, it was just someone in a robot suit.”

This year, the Tesla Bot walked onstage with no mechanical backup to prevent falls. It did so safely, but it wasn't clear how many technicians were nearby piloting and monitoring the android.

The humanoid robot waved to the audience and did some dance moves before moving offstage. Musk noted that the robot uses the same self-driving computer as the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company's cars. He thanked Tesla's staffers for their hard work over the past year.

Tesla trains robot to work in its factories
“The robot can do a lot more than we could show you here,” said Musk, who then showed videos of the robot doing things such as picking up boxes in a warehouse and watering a plant in an office.

The rendered view showed that Optimus uses the same process as Tesla's Autopilot self-driving software to identify objects using trained neural networks.

The video also showed the robot grasping objects at an actual workstation in Tesla's factory in Fremont, Calif. The company said it chose human-like hands with six actuators and 11 degrees of freedom, adaptive grasp, and sensor feedback because most objects are designed for human hands.

Tesla developed simulations but then needed to compare them with reality for state estimation, said Anand Swaminathan, staff controls engineer at Tesla. “Reality is way more complex, with vibrations, modes, compliance, and sensor noise,” he said. “We compared what we want and reality in order to add corrections.”

In addition, Tesla used motion capture to demonstrate key frames and then ran them through its optimization program for grasping and balance.

“We'll be nailing this down in the next few months,” Musk said. “We called this model the 'Bumble C,' a rough development robot using semi-off-the-shelf actuators.”
Tesla Bot based on self-driving car technology
Tesla said it used several innovations from its automotive line in its humanoid robot, including battery technology, the central computer, and hardware and software security features.

Malcolm Burgess, manager for vehicle dynamics and concept structures at Tesla, described how crash simulations helped the company develop androids. The simulation of a car crash test included 35 million degrees of freedom, as well as every nut, bolt, and spot weld, he noted.

“We can use these capabilities on the robot side to make a model,” Burgess said. He described efforts to reduce damage from falls, to optimize components, and reflect stresses on cheaper materials than expensive titanium. Burgess cited the example of a human-inspired knee as a four-bar link joint whose torque was calculated and tested.

Konstantinos Laskaris, staff motor design engineer at Tesla, described how Optimus has 28 actuators, in comparison with two drive units in a car. By comparing torque, speed, and energy needs in an optimization model, the company was able to consolidate actuators into seven types.

Tesla used three rotary and three linear actuators with features for high and low speeds. Laskaris showed a video clip of a Tesla actuator lifting a half-ton, 9-ft., concert grand piano.