A developer of bipedal warehouse robots says it has successfully upgraded one of its humanoids with artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities.
Agility Robotics last month posted a video demonstrating how an AI-enabled Digit robot performed a relatively mundane task: identifying a box by a specific color — one that matches “Darth Vader’s lightsaber” — picking it up, and moving it to a specific place in a warehouse demo facility.
Digit debuted in early 2020 in an effort to take over the most grueling tasks faced by workers in the logistics sector and other industries. Agility added “hands” and a “head” to the latest generation of the robot last year, and company officials, Engadget reports, said that the demo showcased the potential for “large language models” in warehouse robots.
In addition to highlighting the robot completing its task, the video shows the processes it used to undertake it. Agility said the Digit was given “natural language” commands in the demo rather than “specific” details about its tasks.
E-commerce giant Amazon — no stranger to warehouse automation itself — has reached an agreement to test Digit at one of its distribution centers near its native Seattle. Agility, meanwhile, plans to build 10,000 robots every year at a forthcoming manufacturing site in Oregon — a facility that it calls the world’s first humanoid factory.
Image Credit: Agility Robotics
