Meet Apollo, the “iPhone” for humanoid robots

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Austin, Texas
CNN
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Humans doing housework or building habitats on the moon might sound like something out of science fiction. But the team at a robotics startup in Austin aptronic He envisions a future where general-purpose robots will handle “boring, dirty, and dangerous” jobs so that humans don’t have to do it.

The design of Apptronik’s latest humanoid robot, named Apollo, was unveiled on Wednesday.

The robot is about the same scale as a human, standing 5 feet 8 inches (1.7 meters) tall and weighing 160 pounds (72.6 kilograms).

Apollo could lift 55 pounds (25 kilograms) and was designed to be mass-produced and to work safely alongside humans. The robot uses electricity, rather than hydraulics, which aren’t considered safe, and has a four-hour battery that can be replaced so it can run a 22-hour work day.

To avoid “uncanny valley” territory, a phenomenon in which humans feel uncomfortable about a robot’s human-like appearance, Austin-based Argodesign outfitted Apollo with features intended to feel friendly — even friendly.

The robot has digital panels on its chest that provide clear communication about remaining battery life, the current task it’s working on, when it’s going to finish and what it’s going to do next. Apollo also has a face and intentional movements, such as turning his head to indicate where he is going.

Apollo’s initial goal is to operate in logistics, taking on physically demanding roles within warehouses to improve the supply chain by addressing labor shortages. But the Aptronic team has a long-term vision for Apollo that spans at least the next decade.

“Our goal is to build versatile robots to do all the things we don’t want to do to help us here on Earth, and eventually explore the Moon, Mars, and beyond one day,” said Jeff Cardenas, co-founder and CEO of Apptronik. .

Before starting Apptronik in 2016, team members worked in the Human Centered Robotics Lab at the University of Texas at Austin.

“The lab’s focus was on how humans and robots would interact in the future,” Cardenas said. “As human beings, our most precious resource is time, and our time here is limited. As tool makers, we can now build ourselves tools that give us more time.”

While in the lab, the team was selected to work on Valkyrie, a NASA robot, during the DARPA Robotics Challenge between 2012 and 2013.

The robot, which is 6 feet 2 inches (1.9 m) tall and weighs 300 pounds (136 kg), is a bipedal robot capable of dexterous manipulation and walking (including over and around obstacles), carrying objects, and opening doors. According to Sean Azimi, the agile robotics team leader at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The electric robot has been tweaked and improved since its debut in 2013, and it really is It is currently being tested As a remote administrator for unmanned and offshore energy facilities in Australia.

Apollo has its roots in Valkyrie design, and the Apptronik team has spent years building unique robotics and components that culminated in creating a robot that can operate in environments designed for people. Cárdenas said assembly line robots are often installed on the floor or attached to a wall and can only operate in spaces designed to accommodate them.

Instead of highly specialized robots that can serve only one purpose, Cardenas said, Aptronic wanted Apollo to be an “iPhone of robots.”

“The goal is to build a single robot that can do thousands of different things,” he said. “It’s a software update away from a new task or behavior.”

Ultimately, the price of the Apollo will be lower than that of the average car. Conventional robots rely on high precision parts. But the introduction of cameras and AI systems has enabled the development of robots that rely less on preprogramming and are instead more responsive to their environments, which means parts used in production are more affordable, Cardenas said.

This year, Apptronik is focused on securing commercial and manufacturer customers interested in how Apollo can improve their logistics. The company aims to reach full commercial production by the end of 2024.

Apollo will start in factory and warehouse settings to do simple tasks, such as moving crates and pushing carts. But over time, Apollo’s functionality will be augmented by new models and upgrades to the point where it can be used in construction, electronics production, retail spaces, home delivery, and even elderly care.

At the heart of Apollo’s design are the actuators, or robot muscles. The Apptronik team has worked on more than 35 iterations of the basic actuators that enable Apollo to walk, bend its arms, and grasp objects like a human.

“Humans have about 300 muscles in our bodies,” said Dr. Nick Payne, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Apptronik. “As engineers, our goal is to simplify complexity, so the Apollo robot has about 30 different muscle groups within its system that it needs to perform basic actions and activities.”

Before Apollo, Aptronic focused on what it called the rapidly evolving humanoid robot. While it included limited handling capabilities and simple arms, the design focus was on improving the robot’s locomotion.

“The way we develop robotics is we really try to make the hardware and the software mature with each other,” Payne said.

Apollo’s head contains a visualization camera, while sensors on his torso help the robot draw a 360-degree map of its environment and decide where it can move. The “brain” of the robot, or main computer, is also located in its chest.

Sensors help the robot stay upright as it walks over or around obstacles. This kind of motion will be key as Apollo makes its way into more obscure environments, such as the open air, and even the surface of the Moon one day.

“Robots need to be able to operate in the same kind of chaos and uncertainty that humans can live with,” Payne said.

Eventually, Apollo will be autonomous, but the team at Aptronic still wants there to be a level of control over what the robot will do. Cardenas said that although the controls will first work via tablets or smart devices, in the future, a human should be able to go to Apollo and tell him what to do.

To the moon and beyond

Apptronik serves as one of NASA’s partners working on designs for humanoid robots. Earth is a testing ground for Apollo, and one day, a futuristic version of the robot could operate in dangerous space conditions so humans wouldn’t have to.

It would take several steps in development to prepare humanoid robots to operate in the vacuum of space, Payne said, so Apollo may go first to the International Space Station.

“In order to explore space, we really need systems with more than one skill that are flexible and adaptable, whether to a variety of tasks that we know about or perhaps some tasks that we wouldn’t expect until they actually appear in the course of exploration,” Azimi said.

Azimi said the current architecture of NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to return humans to the moon and eventually land crewed missions on Mars, envisages a pressurized lunar rover once the Artemis VI mission is scheduled for the 2030s. This period of lunar exploration is in the early 2030s. The 2030s is the time when Azimi thinks robots like Apollo might also be useful.

The benefit of using humanoid robots like Apollo in space is that they can be used to build and test environments designed with humans in mind—such as lunar and Martian habitats—before the astronauts arrive. But robots will face challenges and need to design with fewer restrictions than their counterparts on Earth. For example, an automated robot might need to crawl inside a rover environment similar in size to a recreational vehicle, and still have the strength and flexibility to open pressurized doors, Azimi said.

“My hope and dream is that we will have general-purpose robots sent into space within the next 10 years and be able to realize some of the benefits of having robotic systems that can allow the crew to focus more on the things that humans do best are explore and make discoveries,” Azimi said. scientific.”