These Humanoid Robots Work Together, Running the Same AI
Figure first unveiled its Helix AI, a vision-language-action model, with a video demo showing two of its robots in Figure's Home Lab, being told verbally to put away groceries that a human placed on the counter.
The speaker points out these are objects the robots have never seen before, and asks them to put the items away where they belong.
The robo-buddies are shown working together to ensure the cheese reaches the fridge, the cookies get to the cupboard, and the apple ends up in the fruit bowl.
From the video, it appears as though the robots are initiating their collaborative movements at the same time. One robot moves to grab the bowl at the same time the other moves to grab the apple.
Figure says both robots are running on a single set of neural network weights at the same time and for all behaviors. Weights are one of the settings neural network developers can change to affect the resulting output. Having consistent weights across robots and behaviors makes multirobot collaboration and task-switching easier.
The company also shared a video of a group of Figure 02 robots sorting packages on an assembly line. Figure highlighted in a statement that its robots now have "a rich 3D understanding" thanks to data from two cameras built into its head. Unlike human eyes, which are side by side, Figure 02's stereovision comes from one camera on top of the other.
Similar to previous demos we've seen from Figure, the robots are shown sorting unfamiliar objects, orienting them in a particular way, and correcting their own mistakes.
Lab demos like these are fascinating to watch, but they don't provide much information about the robot's limitations. In the home lab demo, the groceries are neatly laid out before the robots on the counter with good lighting, rather than stuffed into a dark grocery bag as they would likely be in real life. The true test of any of these humanoid robots will be how reliably and safely they can perform in an uncontrolled environment like the home, workplace or out in the world.
Viewed together, these demos give us a sense of the Figure 02's capabilities in two out of the three settings Figure is aiming at: the labor force, the home and someday in space.
Figure has a lot of competition in those categories. Companies including Agility Robotics, Boston Dynamics and Tesla have shown their robots performing packaging and sorting tasks autonomously, and 1X has shown a group of its robots performing autonomous tasks like cleaning up.
To see these robots in action, check out the video at the top of this article.
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