Image Credits:<\/strong> Brian Heater<\/p>\n<\/div>\nFor Johnson, Modex has been a massive learning experience. She spoke to us last week from Japan, where she had recently competed in the Tokyo marathon. She hopped on a plane back to the States over the weekend specifically to get a first-hand view of the supply chain\/logistics world of which she is now a part. \u201cI wanted to make sure I was here to see not only the customers, but the environment the devices work in. I\u2019m going to spend a lot of time walking around today and immerse myself in that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson\u2019s primary pitch as CEO is a quick path to ROI. That\u2019s achievable in no small part to the fact that Digit is available through a RaaS (robotics-as-a-service) model, which has become an increasingly popular way to convince companies to take the leap. Customers can now pilot these systems without having to worry about massive upfront costs.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s those customers who ultimately shape Digit\u2019s future. The model on the floor demonstrating an automotive workflow has a new pair of end effectors. Rather than the flipper-style appendages the company has been showcasing, this Digit has four digits of its own on each hand, with two pairs of hooked fingers facing in opposite directions. This isn\u2019t dexterous mobile manipulation, however. Instead, it\u2019s designed to do the thing that Digit has been doing all along: transporting totes.<\/p>\n
The totes here are quite wide however (as is custom on the automotive line), prohibiting the robot from embracing it with an arm on each side. Instead the effectors grasp the front of the totes. This method also affords a more stable grip on a box that often has heavy, untethered objects rolling around inside.<\/p>\n
In the not too distant future, Wise envisions a version of Digit that can swap out its end effectors as needed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you look at the end effector specifically, there\u2019s about 60 years of prior art,\u201d she says. \u201cAll of [Modex], if you look around, all of these robot arms have different end effectors. That\u2019s a very well understood thing. There\u2019s something called \u2018end of arm tooling.\u2019 It\u2019s swappable. What we\u2019re going to be driving toward as a product is having swappable end of arm tooling and eventually make that an automated process.\u201d<\/p>\n
With what could be perceived as a dig at some of the humanoid robot competition, Shelton notes, \u201cbut interestingly, 0% of the solutions are five-fingered, 27-degrees of freedom hands.\u201d He adds, \u201cthere have been some of our competitors who have been on the record saying that they are using a five-fingered hand basically as a branding exercise.\u201d<\/p>\n
As far as what the competition should be focused on, Wise believes Agility\u2019s peers should center on safety \u2014 a huge concern when introducing new technologies into a warehouse setting. \u201cWe need to, collectively as an industry, get our safety story straight,\u201d she says. \u201cWe as an industry need to come together and decide what the safety norms are.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson adds that companies need to focus on the task at hand. \u201cStay focused on the here and now and what can be done,\u201d she says. \u201cEveryone needs a roadmap, but stay focused and prove it out.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Perhaps a few years from now, the halls of the Georgia World Congress Center will be peppered with humanoid robots the week of Modex. In 2024, however, Digit stands alone at the supply chain show. It\u2019s a testament to Agility\u2019s healthy head start over competitors like Figure, Tesla, 1X and Apptronik. This time last year […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":82084,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-82083","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tech"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}