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FORD ACQUIRES DIGIT, WORLD’S FIRST COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE HUMANOID ROBOT
Date: 28 Jan 2020 |
Author Type: Press Release |
Author: Ford South Africa |
Source: Ford South Africa |
- As
online retail continues growing, Ford believes that package delivery services
by commercial and autonomous vehicles could become more efficient and
affordable with the help of a humanoid robot called Digit
- When a vehicle
arrives at its destination, Digit can be deployed to grab a package from the
vehicle and carry out the final step in the delivery process
- Digit’s unique
design allows it to tightly fold itself up for easy storage in the back of a
vehicle until it’s called into action
PRETORIA, South Africa, 28 January
2020 –Agility Robotics is launching
Digit, a robot with arms and legs to work with humans and inhuman spaces, for
commercial sale; and, Ford Motor Company is the first customer, receiving the
first two robots off the line. This cooperation continues the existing
partnership between Agility and Ford (www.agilityrobotics.com/ford-partnership) to explore ways to help
commercial vehicle customers, including autonomous vehicle businesses, make
warehousing and delivery more efficient and affordable for their customers.
Key
applications for further exploration are indoor or first-mile logistics and
last-50-feet delivery. The research also will focus on how Ford’s commercial
vehicles and Digit “talk” to each other and their surroundings through advanced
connectivity technologies. For example, Ford’s connected vehicles can
continually update cloud-based maps that can be shared with Digit so it doesn’t
have to recreate the same type of information.
The
team expects that, as Digit will be part of a package delivery service, this
communication channel will also provide delivery specific information such as
where a customer prefers packages to be left or other individual package
delivery needs. This communication channel also allows Digit to ask for help if
something unexpected is encountered.
“As
online retailing continues growing, we believe robots will help our commercial
customers build stronger businesses by making deliveries more efficient and
affordable for all of us.” said Ken Washington, vice president, Ford Research
and Advanced Engineering, and Chief Technology Officer. “We learned a lot this
year working with Agility, now we can accelerate our exploratory work with
commercial Digit robots,”
Since
the first Digit prototype was shown in May 2019, Agility Robotics has tested it
extensively, refined the design, and added features to be ready for production
and sale to customers. Upgrades and improvements include more advanced feet
that allow Digit to balance on one foot or carefully navigate obstacles, new
sensors to perceive and map the world for robot navigation, and customer-ready,
powerful onboard computer hardware. “We’re excited about the technical
capabilities and advanced legged mobility of Digit”, said Dr. Jonathan Hurst,
CTO of Agility. “Videos can show a solid proof of concept - but this robot is
ready to go out in the world in the hands of customers, and start to really
explore pragmatic use cases.”
Agility
sold its breakthrough robot Cassie as a bipedal research platform from August
2017 through July 2019, and has spent the latter half of 2019 transitioning
production over to Digit. “Digit represents a major milestone for Agility,”
said Dr. Damion Shelton, CEO of Agility. “For the first time, a full humanoid
robot - with both mobility and manipulation capabilities - will be available
for customer applications in a wide variety of industries, both indoor and
outdoor. We look forward to showing off our work on both logistics and
non-logistics tasks in the coming months.”
Digit
has been designed to walk upright without wasting energy, so it has no issue
traversing the same types of environments most people do every day. Digit’s
unique design also allows it to tightly fold itself up for easy storage in the
back of a vehicle until it’s called into action. Once a vehicle arrives at its
destination, Digit can be deployed to grab a package from the vehicle and carry
out the final step in the delivery process. If it encounters an unexpected
obstacle, it can send an image back to the vehicle to leverage additional
computing power. The vehicle could even send that information into the cloud
and request help from other systems to enable Digit to navigate, providing
multiple levels of assistance that help keep the robot light and nimble.
Digit’s lightweight also helps ensure it has a long run time, which is
essential for delivery businesses that operate continuously through the
business day.