On November 28th local time, Tesla Robotics' official account released a new update: they have prepared new hands to welcome Black Friday. In the video, Optimus steadily catches a tennis ball thrown towards him and lowers it, with fingers that can bend relatively flexibly.
The nimble hand is the most eye-catching feature of Tesla's second-generation Optimus. Tesla Optimus engineer Milan Kovac referred to the latest display of the dexterous hand as a 'milestone achievement'.
According to him, compared to the previous generation product, this novice/forearm has double the degrees of freedom (22 degrees of freedom on the hand and 3 degrees of freedom on the wrist/forearm). Little K's note: The human hand is usually considered to have 27 degrees of freedom, and the higher the degree of freedom of the hand, the more complex and delicate the movements can be made.
Kovac stated that the above video was completed in real-time through remote operation in the laboratory, and Tesla will soon manufacture robots equipped with new dexterous hands.
In addition, the team still has some work to complete by the end of the year, especially around expanding tactile sensing integration (the new generation of hands has a much larger surface coverage than the previous generation) and achieving finer control through tendons. Due to all the driving devices being moved to the forearm, which increases its weight, the team is still trying to find ways to reduce the weight of the forearm. An interesting challenge is how to provide fingers and palms with a sufficiently soft/compliant protective layer without affecting tactile sensing.
Musk replied below his post: "The Optimus team is doing a great job
22 degrees of freedom dexterous hand "comes out after a thousand calls"
The previous generation of the Optimus dexterous hand included 11 degrees of freedom, also focused on the flexibility of the forearm. Compared with the first generation Optimus prototype, which was difficult to perform simple operational tasks, the Optimus equipped with an 11 degree of freedom dexterous hand can complete tasks such as folding shirts and sorting items in the factory.
A nimble hand with 22 degrees of freedom comes out after a thousand calls. In May, the Optimus team released a progress video of Optimus, in which the robot was sorting batteries and walking around the office. Musk left a message below the video, revealing for the first time that Optimus' hands will soon have 22 degrees of freedom.
At Tesla's June shareholder meeting, Musk reiterated Tesla's goal (on April 23, 2024, during the first quarter earnings conference call, Musk stated that Tesla expects Optimus devices to perform a series of useful tasks at the factory by the end of this year, and the company's goal is to sell these robots to the public by the end of 2025), which is to start small-scale trial production of Optimus robots from the end of 2024, with an expected annual production of thousands to 10000 units for internal use and training. At the same time, he once again mentioned the key improvement of Optimus - the hand will have 22 degrees of freedom, "it can play the piano, and even the guitar
At Tesla's "werobot" launch event in October, the 22 degree of freedom dexterous hand made its debut, showcasing a new posture of abduction/adduction based on flexion/extension. The agile hand rope drive structure is eye-catching, and the actuator is externally placed in the forearm, allowing the wrist to rotate flexibly.
CITIC Securities stated that this is consistent with its expectation for Tesla's agile hand to use a "hollow cup+screw+rope drive" solution. The 22 degrees of freedom consist of 5 fingers, 4 degrees of freedom each for a single finger, and 2 degrees of automation for the wrist, mimicking the structure of human fingers with over 1 degree of freedom at the lowest joint to the greatest extent possible.
Agile hand is the core component of humanoid robots, and domestic and foreign enterprises actively research and develop it independently
The dexterous hand is currently one of the core components of humanoid robots, and mainstream humanoid robot manufacturers tend to develop their own bodies, such as Tesla (Optimus), Apptronik (Apollo), Walker S, Zhiyuan (Expedition A1), Sanctuary AI (Phoenix), etc.
According to a research report by Hua'an Securities, the performance and cost of dexterous hands are jointly influenced by their three core components - drive, transmission, and sensing devices. With the advancement of robot technology, the degree of freedom of dexterous hands is upgraded and accelerated, and is increasingly developing towards high integration and intelligence. According to incomplete statistics from the Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily:
On October 16, the China National Intellectual Property Administration reported that Zhiyuan Robot had applied for a patent named "Dexterous Hand Thumb, Dexterous Hand and Robot" in June this year. The patent shows that this application relates to the field of robotics, specifically to a dexterous hand thumb, dexterous hand, and robot, which solves the problem that a dexterous hand thumb with 3 degrees of freedom cannot simultaneously consider joint decoupling and size. It is worth mentioning that in the new product released by Zhiyuan Robot in August, the degree of freedom of the dexterous hand reached 19, among which the active degree of freedom increased from 6 in the previous generation to 12.
In the first half of this year, Xingdong Era launched its independently developed dexterous hand Xhand, which has 12 active degrees of freedom, adopts a fully driven solution, and is equipped with tactile sensors at the fingertips.
Figure AI released the second-generation humanoid robot Figure02 in August this year, which is equipped with a fourth generation robotic arm. According to its official website, the dexterous hand in Figure 02 has 16 degrees of freedom and is said to have a load capacity comparable to that of humans, capable of grasping objects weighing 25 kilograms.
1X Technologies, a startup invested by OpenAI, launched a test version of its humanoid robot NEO specifically designed for home use in early September this year. The robot has 20 degrees of freedom in its hands and can lift objects weighing more than twice its own weight.
Guojin Securities previously released a research report stating that the changes in Tesla's third-generation dexterous hand compared to the second generation are: (1) the hand has increased degrees of freedom from 11 to 22, which may increase the corresponding number of motors from the original 6 to 13-17; (2) The loading position of the driver has been changed from the hand to the wrist.
Guojin Securities stated that based on functionality and long-term goals, the development of agile hands towards human hands is the trend. Taking Tesla's dexterous hand as an example, the organization analyzed the elastic links in the industry chain brought about by the increase in degrees of freedom:
On the driving device, it is expected that hollow cup motors and brushless toothed motors will become mainstream. Assuming a single hand usage of about 13-17, the current value of both hands is 34000-15300 yuan;
On the transmission device, it is currently at a critical time point for the tendon rope to switch to the screw. Assuming a single hand usage of 13-17 sets, the current value of both hands is 55-130000 yuan;
On the sensor device, tactile sensors are the most valuable link, with a single hand usage of about 5 sets and a dual hand value of about 1351 yuan.