We're already seeing humanoid robots entering the workplace in limited trials, but when will we be able to kick back and let the service droid take care of household chores? A new video from Germany's Neura Robotics shows this dream is inching ever closer to reality.
Neura Robotics was founded in 2019 near Stuttgart in Germany, and has since launched industrial robot arms and manipulators, a roving mobile platform and a multi-purpose helper.
The company has also been working on a general purpose humanoid named 4NE-1 for the last couple of years, and has now shown off a few of its capabilities in a promo video – which has been released to highlight Neura joining forces with NVIDIA to accelerate humanoid development.
The footage shows the humanoid helper performing a raft of mediocre or tiresome domestic chores – from doing the ironing to food prep – while also tidying up items scattered on a tabletop or keeping the kids amused. The cheerfully named bot is seen operating machinery and hefting gear around a workspace, to highlight its industry potential, before introducing fellow Neura family members.
It's not clear whether teleoperation was involved here, but the video does mention training the system in a simulated environment. The 4NE-1 is reported to stand 1.8 m (5.9 ft) in height and weighs in at 80 kg (176 lb). There are 3D sensors in its torso for 360-degree vision capabilities, and it's able to move at up to 3 km/h (1.8 mph).
The head is also a status display, voice recognition is cooked in and the robot gets to grips with tasks via reinforcement learning. It can work autonomously or be operated remotely, and is capable of lifting and carrying objects up to 15 kg (33 lb).
Handling those objects comes courtesy of human-like hands at the end of jointed arms, though the forearms are exchangeable for something more task specific if needed. Onboard sensors are said to offer force-torque feedback for all moving joints – enabling smooth, stable and precise motion. And the company boasts that it has also developed a special AI-driven sensor "that can detect people and other moving objects even when the sensor's view is obstructed."
All of the Neura robots will benefit from early access of NVIDIA's Humanoid Robot Developer Program, which includes inference microservices to "help developers train physical machines and improve how they handle complex tasks" and cloud-based OSMO orchestration and scaling to run multi-stage workloads, as well as AI/simulation teleoperation training workflows.
"By combining Neura's innovative cognitive robotics solutions with NVIDIA's advanced computing power and simulation platforms, we will push the boundaries of humanoid robotics even faster.," said Neura's founder, David Reger.
NVIDIA also provides AI supercomputers to train models, another platform "where robots can learn and refine their skills in simulates worlds" and Jetson Thor humanoid robot computers to run the models. Neura's partners and customers are to gain access to NVIDIA's Project GR00T foundation model from September. A production timeline for the 4NE-1 humanoid has not been revealed at this time.
Source: Neura Robotics
