From Nvidia’s droid to agile humanoids: Meet the next-gen robots shaping the future

Nvidia believes that general purpose humanoid robots are the ideal form factor because they can be easily built to adapt to industrial and urban settings with physically demanding work conditions. The robots can also assist humans when needed in places such as factory floors, hospitals or even homes. 

To enable widespread adoption and faster rollout of the GR00T N1 platform, Nvidia has partnered with leading robotics companies to incorporate the technology. 

The NEO Gamma robot from 1X Technologies is a general-purpose robot that’s designed for homes to assist humans in their day-to-day tasks. The robot has a minimalist design with soft covers that mimic the look of clothes. It can walk, move its arms, pick up objects and even perform common tasks like sorting dishes, watering plants or operating a vacuum cleaner. The NEO Gamma can be trained, and its actions can continually improve over time as it learns from its mistakes. The robot can also engage in normal conversation and express body language.

Developed by Agility Robotics, Digit is a humanoid robot designed to work in a commercial and industrial environment. The robot stands at 1.7 metres tall and has interchangeable hands designed for grasping various objects. Depending on the arm attachments, the robot, which can carry up to a maximum weight of 15 kilogrammes, can lift crates or grasp individual objects such as grocery items and place them on a shelf.

Digit can talk using a series of beeps and burbles that can be deciphered using an app, and when low on power, it can return to its dock and charge itself. Digit robots are usually deployed as a fleet with other units. Typical industries that use Digit are distribution, manufacturing, logistics and retail companies.

After a decade of research and development, popular robot maker Boston Dynamics has released the current version of Atlas. As an early adopter of Nvidia’s GR00T platform, Boston Dynamics has designed Atlas for real-world industrial applications. The new Altas is stronger and has a wider range of motion compared to the previous model. The robot is also agile enough to be able to walk, crawl, run and even breakdance and do cartwheels. Atlas uses a machine learning vision model to navigate through its environment. It can also move autonomously without the need to programme its movement or control it remotely.

Similar to a BD droid seen in the Star Wars show The Mandalorian, the bipedal BDX droid makes its spotlight-stealing appearance during Huang’s GTC keynote. The BDX can only talk through beeps and whistles but its small size and duck-like walk gives it an undeniable appeal.

Some of the droid’s actions are remotely-operated but it balances itself autonomously. The BDX droid uses an AI-driven physics engine called Newton that is developed in collaboration with Nvidia, Google DeepMind and Disney Research.

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