The world's first humanoid robot factory goes into production, with an annual production target of 10,000 units, ushering in a new blue ocean for components

According to reports from Enthusiasts.com (Text/Wu Zipeng), Agility Robocs, headquartered in Oregon, USA, recently announced that the world's first humanoid factory "RoboFab" built by it has officially started assembling robots. The factory has a production capacity of hundreds of units within the first year.

Agility Robotics was founded in 2015. In September 2023, Agility Robotics opened its first robot manufacturing plant, RoboFab, in Salem, Oregon, and is expected to produce hundreds of Digits in the first year, and then expand to about 10,000 units per year. Now, the news has come that the RoboFab factory has officially entered the mass production stage.

On the application side, in August this year, the BMW Group announced that it had conducted a trial of introducing humanoid robots into the production line for the first time at the Spartanburg plant in the United States. The robots used were from Figure, a California company. Therefore, as more and more humanoid robot factories enter the mass production stage, the application of humanoid robots in the manufacturing industry will show an explosive trend, bringing related large-scale demand.

RoboFab factory is progressing rapidly

RoboFab is the world's first factory for mass production of humanoid robots built by Agility Robotics, which is of great significance in the development of the industry. Peggy Johnson, CEO of Agility Robotics, revealed that the planned area of ​​RoboFab is 70,000 square feet, with an annual production capacity of 10,000 units.

The core of the RoboFab factory is the mobile manipulator (MMR) Digit. Agility Robotics defines these products as the world's leading MMR robots that can enter existing work scenarios and solve the most difficult parts of the workflow to automate. According to the product introduction, the humanoid robot Digit currently produced in the RoboFab factory stands at a height of 5 feet 9 inches, can reach a height from the floor to 5 feet 6 inches, and weighs a maximum of 35 pounds. The accessories required are the terminal effector and the charging station. Among them, the terminal effector is to help the humanoid robot operate the workpiece.

Digit is a logistics robot carefully built by Agility Robotics. It can perform a variety of tasks and adapt to different workflows. Its body shape is very suitable for working in warehouses and is easy to deploy in existing warehouses or infrastructure without modification. It is reported that the robots produced by Agility Robotics are tested in actual applications, including and GXO Logistics. Peggy Johnson said, "In the field of logistics alone, there are more than 1 million job vacancies. Robots like Digit can intervene to help logistics customers fill labor vacancies."

In March 2023, Agility Robotics released the Digit V4 version. In October 2023, the company began testing Digit in warehouses of Amazon, the world's largest e-commerce company. In June 2024, Digit officially entered the GXO logistics shift, not for testing, verification and demonstration, but as a real worker in the logistics warehouse. Agility Robotics called this a milestone day.

At present, the application of humanoid robots is no longer limited to logistics. In more complex manufacturing scenarios, some manufacturers have begun to deploy humanoid robots. In August this year, the BMW Group announced that it had conducted its first trial of introducing humanoid robots into the production line at the Spartanburg plant in the United States. The latest humanoid robot "Figure 02" developed by California company Figure successfully inserted the metal plate into a specific fixture and assembled it into part of the chassis. Because automobile factories are very efficient, they have higher requirements for the dexterity of robots.

Progress of domestic humanoid robots

As for international manufacturers, Figure, Boston Dynamics, and the above-mentioned Agility Robotics are currently making rapid progress in humanoid robots, and each has its own strengths. So, what stage has the development of domestic humanoid robots reached?

Judging from the number of manufacturers, statistics show that as of February 2024, the number of humanoid robot-related companies in the country is 25,000, and the competition is even more intense. From the perspective of regional distribution, the number of humanoid robot companies in Guangdong Province, Beijing and Shanghai ranks in the top three, with 4516, 4479 and 3027 respectively.

At present, a number of representative companies and representative products of humanoid robots have also been born in China. For example, Unitree G1, this robot was released on May 13, 2024, and it caused a huge response in the market as soon as it was launched. The Unitree G1 is priced from 99,000 yuan and is called an incarnation. It has superhuman flexibility, a large joint motion angle space, and is equipped with 23 to 43 joints. It provides force-controlled dexterous hands, combined with force-position hybrid control, which is sensitive and reliable, and can achieve precise manipulation of objects by hand. It is equipped with UnifoLM (Unitree Robot Unified Large Model), and its digital capabilities are constantly updated. Currently, Unitree G1 has started mass sales.

Another example is the Fourier GR-2, a robot released on September 26 this year. The Fourier GR-2 inherits the bionic design of its predecessor, the GR-1, with a height of 175cm and a weight of 63kg. The whole body has 53 degrees of freedom, and the single-arm motion load can reach 3kg, allowing the robot to perform more complex operations. At the same time, GR-2 has brought innovations and improvements in many key links such as design and development framework, showing more flexible, stronger and more open characteristics to meet the needs of various fields and diversified application scenarios. The Fourier GR-2 also has a dexterous hand, equipped with a new generation of 12-degree-of-freedom dexterous hands, and with 6 array-type tactile senses, it can accurately grasp objects of different shapes and materials. The full series of Fourier GR-2 has 7 different models of humanoid-specific FSA actuators, using a dual system to double the accuracy.

In addition, well-known humanoid robots in China include UBTECH's Walker S, which has entered the NIO factory for training; Xiaomi's Cyber ​​One, which can recognize 45 semantics and 85 ambient sounds; Zhiyuan Robotics' Yuanzheng A1, which has been deployed in home scenarios including care, cooking, and cleaning; and Xiaopeng's PX5, which is still in the early stages and will be deployed in Xiaopeng's factories and sales scenarios in the future.

It can be seen that both at home and abroad, humanoid robots have entered the early stages of implementation, and the future is promising.

Humanoid robots bring new demands for components

Statistics show that the global robot shipment scale is expected to be about 47 million units in 2024, and the compound growth rate will maintain more than 20% in the next five years. In terms of market size, according to the forecast of Goldman Sachs, an international investment bank, the global humanoid robot market size is expected to reach US$154 billion by 2035.

The rapid development of humanoid robots has brought huge new demands for components. At present, humanoid robots are focusing on improving the freedom of the body, and the number of joints has become the key, which has brought greater demand for motors and actuators. The motor is the power source of humanoid robots, providing power for basic movements such as walking, turning and grasping of robots, and also enables robots to complete complex motion tasks by precisely controlling speed, torque and direction. In terms of traditional servo systems, international manufacturers include, Lenze, Schneider, Rexroth, Yaskawa, Mitsubishi,, Fuji, etc., and domestic manufacturers mainly include Delta, Huichuan, Hechuan and Leisai Intelligent, etc.

At the same time, humanoid robots have also brought some new motor demands, including hollow cup motors and frameless torque motors, which are mainly used for dexterous hands and joints. International manufacturers of frameless torque motors include Maxon, Moog, Sensata Technologies, Kollmorgen, etc., and domestic companies mainly include Buke Co., Ltd., Haozhi Electromechanical, Jiangnan Yifan, and Micro Precision Motor. International suppliers of hollow cup motors mainly include Maxon, FAULHABER, PORTESCAP, etc., and domestic manufacturers mainly include Mingzhi Electric, Weichuan, and Weizhao Electromechanical.

In addition to motors, core components of key actuators and dexterous hand actuators of humanoid robots also include reducers, lead screws, encoders, and force sensors. In terms of energy systems, battery packs and systems are also the core of humanoid robot systems. In addition, humanoid robots are the carriers of AI systems, so the use of high computing power, radars, depth cameras, microphones and other components will also be very large, and related manufacturers are expected to benefit.

Conclusion

With Agility Robotics announcing that the RoboFab factory has officially begun assembling robots, the development of global humanoid robots has entered a new stage. This means that the business scope issues that have plagued humanoid robots have been overcome with the combination of humanoid robots and specific application scenarios, and the number of humanoid robots deployed in various industries will increase rapidly.

In terms of humanoid robots, domestic manufacturers have performed well. Domestic humanoid robots such as Unitree G1 from Yushu Technology and Fourier GR-2 from Fourier Intelligence are very competitive in the entire international market. Next, it depends on how to better penetrate the scene.

Humanoid robots are a complex of high technologies and the embodiment of AI models. Therefore, they have a significant driving effect on related components. With the explosion of the humanoid robot industry, core components will also benefit.