China's Kepler took its Forerunner humanoid robot to CES 2024 back in January, taking aim at Tesla's Optimus in the process. The company has since been in talks with target customers and has now announced a follow-up that's "tailored for commercial applications."
The original Forerunner – now called the K1 – was built around proprietary AI brains and came with 8-hour battery endurance. It featured in-house roller-screw actuators in the arms and legs and custom rotary actuators for the waist and shoulder joints. And it could work with total payloads of up to 25 kg (55 lb), with sensor-packed human-like hands for grasping objects.
Despite its sequential name, Shanghai Kepler Robotics says that the new Forerunner K2 actually represents the fifth generation model. As you might expect, the latest humanoid has been treated to "extensive software and hardware enhancements."
On the hardware front, the K2 is reported to have 52 degrees of freedom throughout the body. The bot features a rotating and tilting head module, and its arms and legs now benefit from improved rigidity, and are easier to manufacture and maintain.
The "rope-driven" five-digit hands each support up 11 degrees of active and passive freedom, and each "tactile manipulator" can heft up to 15 kg (33 lb). Every fingertip is home to a sensor array boasting 96 contact points.
The humanoid now benefits from a star-shaped wiring layout for easier upgrades and maintenance. The 2.33-kWh battery is the same as before, for per-charge operation of up to 8 hours – with support for direct and automated charging.
Kepler reports that the humanoid's vision system and navigation software have been significantly improved to better take in its location and surroundings in real-time, and react rapidly to changes in complex environments.
The K2 has "nearly mastered" specific tasks autonomously thanks to a mix of embodied intelligence software, imitation and reinforcement learning, and a cloud-based cognitive model. Algorithms relating to human-robot interactions and data transmission have been improved so that the K2 can "effectively cooperate with human operators." And stability while mobile plus walking speeds have been boosted thanks to tweaks in gait planning and control algorithms.
Noting that humanoids are already entering the workplace, and that Tesla is looking to deploy thousands of Optimus robot workers to its production lines as early as next year, Kepler has also outlined a path to commercialization for its Forerunner models.
The K2 was developed after consultation with almost 50 target customers and is pitched as "an ideal solution for a range of domains, including intelligent manufacturing, warehousing and logistics, high-risk operations, and research and education."
The company is already evaluating its performance at a number of customer facilities, where it's been tasked with materials handling, sample processing, patrol/inspection, collection and quality control. This testing phase will be followed by more widespread deployment. After which comes "generalization in vertical scenarios, and ultimately universal application across all scenarios."
The Forerunner K2 was officially launched at the Gitex Global 2024 expo in Dubai earlier this month. You can see humanoid highlights from the show in the video below.
Source: Kepler
