Whenever I hear german companies mention digitalisation, I get reminded that they still use pen and pencil in production environments to log data, pass those sheets to secreteries who enter the data into legacy systems so data analysts can enter it into another system that then has an integration with SAP. Data from SAP then flows onwards to some buzzword filled Azure product that costs a few million a month from which someone downloads an xls file and uploads it to Tableau where they run some simple calculations. Someone else downloads it as an xls and manually writes (not copy pastes) the numbers into a power point presentation and makes graphs by drawing shapes. This is then presented at some bi-monthly meeting.
My prediction is that by the time humanoid robots actually make it to the factory floor, they'll be pretty un-humanoid.
90% of car manufacturing is done by oldschool industrial robots, and I've had people point out that heavy use of industrial robots are basically unique to the car industry.
You might see a robot arm here and there in other industries, but it's somewhat rare, usually its all purpose-built machines or humans.
Hexagon is very prominent in precision manufacturing through their dimensional measurement robots (CMM Coordinate Measurement Machine) and other metrology software/hardware. This is most likely why they were chosen by BMW, as I imagine they already have a working relationship together, although the EU aspect could have contributed as well.
I wonder if this is a newly acquired subsidiary producing these robots (they've been doing a lot of acquisitions recently), or if these have been in development in-house for a while.
I think this is going to be bad for BMW, and bad for the current robotics-summer. I _hope_ that’s not the case, I’d love for robotics to get deployed more widely in manufacturing. But I’m pretty sure it will be. I think the chances of meaningful success would be higher with non-humanoid robotics
Feel free to ask for more details if you have specific questions! I worked in robotics for many years, I have some decent familiarity with this space. Here’s some more detailed thoughts “for free”:
Humanoid robotics are largely a publicity stunt. Our actuators, sensors, and algorithms are better adapted to other form factors. The nice thing about humanoids is that you (in theory) don’t have to change the interface, since they can use the same interface humans can use. In practice that doesn’t hold well, because we don’t have great force/pressure sensors to cover large areas like human skin. Likewise, it’s difficult to apply the fine forces that are sometimes needed (grabbing an egg, moving a joystick, etc). And there’s risk of the robot doing something unpredictable, so you always have to set a good safety bound around it anyways. In the end it’s often better to adapt the process to modern robotics, rather than the other way around.
It is a pilot project. German pilot projects rarely go anywhere. If this succeeds against all odds, I hope for BMW that the robots are buying cars, too.
Yeah. Feels kind of insignificant considering the amount of non-humanoid robots they've used on production lines for the last few decades and lack of any claims to be "fully autonomous" or for the humanoid robots to be performing particularly advanced tasks
Tesla beat Hyundai and BMW to this meaningless announcement a year ago, and have already progressed from that to the inevitable “oh yeah, this doesn’t actually work yet.”
Oh, absolutely. Because history clearly shows that when multi-billion dollar corporations save money on labor, they immediately pass those savings directly to the consumer.
Whenever I hear german companies mention digitalisation, I get reminded that they still use pen and pencil in production environments to log data, pass those sheets to secreteries who enter the data into legacy systems so data analysts can enter it into another system that then has an integration with SAP. Data from SAP then flows onwards to some buzzword filled Azure product that costs a few million a month from which someone downloads an xls file and uploads it to Tableau where they run some simple calculations. Someone else downloads it as an xls and manually writes (not copy pastes) the numbers into a power point presentation and makes graphs by drawing shapes. This is then presented at some bi-monthly meeting.
I wish I was making this stuff up.
They make connecting SAP so difficult... this is the only way
That might actually describe a pretty good implementation of an interface to SAP.
I think pencil is more efficient than SAP.
Seems to be this European robotics company
https://robotics.hexagon.com/product/
https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/hexagon-robotics-ai-software-a...
My prediction is that by the time humanoid robots actually make it to the factory floor, they'll be pretty un-humanoid.
90% of car manufacturing is done by oldschool industrial robots, and I've had people point out that heavy use of industrial robots are basically unique to the car industry.
You might see a robot arm here and there in other industries, but it's somewhat rare, usually its all purpose-built machines or humans.
Hexagon is very prominent in precision manufacturing through their dimensional measurement robots (CMM Coordinate Measurement Machine) and other metrology software/hardware. This is most likely why they were chosen by BMW, as I imagine they already have a working relationship together, although the EU aspect could have contributed as well.
I wonder if this is a newly acquired subsidiary producing these robots (they've been doing a lot of acquisitions recently), or if these have been in development in-house for a while.
And this is how it starts in EU
I think this is going to be bad for BMW, and bad for the current robotics-summer. I _hope_ that’s not the case, I’d love for robotics to get deployed more widely in manufacturing. But I’m pretty sure it will be. I think the chances of meaningful success would be higher with non-humanoid robotics
This is top-tier vagueposting.
Feel free to ask for more details if you have specific questions! I worked in robotics for many years, I have some decent familiarity with this space. Here’s some more detailed thoughts “for free”:
Humanoid robotics are largely a publicity stunt. Our actuators, sensors, and algorithms are better adapted to other form factors. The nice thing about humanoids is that you (in theory) don’t have to change the interface, since they can use the same interface humans can use. In practice that doesn’t hold well, because we don’t have great force/pressure sensors to cover large areas like human skin. Likewise, it’s difficult to apply the fine forces that are sometimes needed (grabbing an egg, moving a joystick, etc). And there’s risk of the robot doing something unpredictable, so you always have to set a good safety bound around it anyways. In the end it’s often better to adapt the process to modern robotics, rather than the other way around.
There are many good practitioners that write about these and other limitations, I think Rodney Brooks has some good discussion of it, eg. https://rodneybrooks.com/why-todays-humanoids-wont-learn-dex...
There's also the idea that a humanoid robot can learn to imitate human action just by watching it, thanks to AI magic!
It is a pilot project. German pilot projects rarely go anywhere. If this succeeds against all odds, I hope for BMW that the robots are buying cars, too.
Yeah. Feels kind of insignificant considering the amount of non-humanoid robots they've used on production lines for the last few decades and lack of any claims to be "fully autonomous" or for the humanoid robots to be performing particularly advanced tasks
It'll be the first time a BMW ever used turn signals!
Here is a 60 Minutes piece showing Boston Dynamics Atlas working in a car factory in the United States. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6ISdRkS37I
Hyundai vs BMW, where is Tesla?
Tesla beat Hyundai and BMW to this meaningless announcement a year ago, and have already progressed from that to the inevitable “oh yeah, this doesn’t actually work yet.”
Give Hyundai and BMW time.
It's coming, next year, there will be a million of them.
On the moon or on Mars?
There are already 2M robots on Mars, Elon is working on a space mission to bring 1M back.
Why doesn't anybody do the shoulder complex right? It gives me itches to scratch.
That's excellent! I look forward to much cheaper cars now that the robots will be making them for the masses.
Oh, absolutely. Because history clearly shows that when multi-billion dollar corporations save money on labor, they immediately pass those savings directly to the consumer.
Meanwhile China has dark factories.
In a sense BMW has factories in China too (through Brilliance). I once heard the story that they built a 1:1 clone of the Dingolfing plant there.
The owner family did the right thing at the right time. If the Europe and US business tanks they will be fine. BMW as a brand not necessarily.
Not sure what the drawers are on the robot but one of the humanoid robots I saw changed its own battery that was pretty cool (I think it had 2).
So their cars will get cheaper, right... right???
According to Figure, their robots had already been deployed in production
How they work? Without indication
They communicate through tailing each other and flashing bright lights from behind.
Will they dance? I've yet to see someone demo a humanoid robot doing something useful. Clearly, making them dance can't be that difficult.