Figure 01: Coffee-making humanoid robot now shows car assembly skill at BMW

In January 2024, Figure signed its first commercial agreement with BMW to deploy its humanoid robot in the German carmaker’s production facility in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

Now, the California-based robotics firm has released a video showcasing its 01 humanoid robot executing its first job by participating in the vehicle assembly process.

According to the Figure, the humanoid is fully autonomous, with all manipulations shown in the video driven by neural networks that map pixels directly to actions.

A few months ago, Mercedes also announced it was employing Apptronik’s Apollo robot to complete simple tasks like fetching and carrying, helping lighten the load for its human colleagues.

Advancing robotic precision

The versatile robots from Figure are capable of executing a wide range of manufacturing jobs, including handling sheet metal, operating in the body shop, and overseeing the warehouse.

The fully electric robot is 1.6 meters tall, weighs 132 pounds (60 kilograms) with a 44 pounds (20 kilograms) payload, and runs for 5 hours on a charge.

Figure announced during its deployment in January that the robots would undergo training for twelve to twenty-four months. After this training period, they will be integrated into the facility with the precise skills required for each task.

Neural networks enable object manipulation by converting camera pixels into robot actions. The humanoid’s abilities are made possible by a vision-language model from OpenAI, which gets data from Figure 01’s cameras.

Figure’s neural networks process images at 10 Hz through the robot’s cameras, and at 200 Hz, they produce actions with 24 degrees of freedom.

According to Figure, AI systems ensure precise placement of sheet metal within tolerances tighter than 1 cm, and navigation is accomplished solely through simulated object training.

Even though the system is working at a moderate pace, the video showcases these capabilities, highlighting how neural networks drive all manipulations by mapping pixels directly to actions.

Several car manufacturers are exploring humanoid robots for production. Alongside BMW and Mercedes, companies like Honda and Hyundai have been experimenting with human-like robots for years to automate repetitive and hazardous tasks on assembly lines.

Future of workforce automation

Figure aims to create a global model that can manage billion-unit humanoid robots . The company points out that there are about 10 million unsafe or undesirable jobs in the US alone.

According to it, an aging population will exacerbate workforce scaling challenges, leading to stagnant labor supply growth this century. Continued growth requires increased productivity, necessitating more automation.

Founded in 2022 by Brett Adcock, Figure has rapidly advanced thanks to a talented team consisting of former employees from tech giants like Boston Dynamics, Tesla, Google DeepMind, and Archer Aviation.

Figure 01, their humanoid robot, swiftly transitioned from concept to reality, demonstrating basic autonomous functions by mid-2023. By the end of the year, its adaptive learning abilities were refined, and it was set for integration into BMW’s workforce by mid-January.

An intriguing video soon followed, showcasing Figure 01 making coffee after a 10-hour training session, made possible by an end-to-end AI system. Backed by a partnership with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, Figure 01 can learn by observing humans, allowing them to understand and execute tasks.

Figure AI faces stiff competition from Tesla, Kepler, Unitree, and Boston Dynamics, who are also developing general-purpose humanoid robots.