Perhaps in a few years, humanoid robots will fill the halls of the Georgia World Congress Center during Modex week. But he is isolated in 2024, Digit supplies his chain show. This is proof that Agility is off to a healthy start against competitors such as Figure, Tesla, 1X, and Apptronik. This time last year, at Modex (Chicago's version of the conference), Digit held something of a launch party for industrial automation. A line of bipedal robots moved packages to a nearby conveyor belt at specific times throughout the week.
This week in Atlanta, a rotating cast of eight Digits will be on duty every day from show start to finish. But this time, the blue and silver robots are doing something a little different. The demo will showcase lineside refilling and tote retrieval using a Flow His rack designed for automotive manufacturing. Agility told TechCrunch that it is currently working with automotive customers, but has not yet disclosed their names.
Ford famously was one of the first supporters of Agility, announcing the partnership all the way back at CES 2020. Ultimately, plans to deploy Digit for last-mile delivery fell through as the company instead shifted its focus to short-term issues of warehouse staffing. This proved to be a wise move, as labor statistics have yet to return even after the coronavirus has subsided. Damion Shelton, former CEO of Agility, said last week that while the last mile is still on the table, there is enough focus on warehousing and manufacturing to keep the company busy. He said there is.
Assembling the executive team has been an important part of the company's growth over the past 12 months. Co-founders Shelton and Jonathan Hurst have moved from CEO and CTO to president and chief robotics officer, respectively. One week ago today, former Magic Leap CEO Peggy Johnson took over the CEO role from Shelton. Last year, the company appointed Fetch founder and CEO Melonie Wise as chief technology officer and appointed former Apple and Ford executive Aindrea Campbell as chief operating officer. (COO).
The change in management signals that companies are taking commercialization more seriously. Additionally, increasing agility is rare among top robotics companies, with five of her nine executives held by women.
Agility is ramping up production and plans to reach “high double-digit” bipedal robot production by the end of the year. At his Modex this week, the company announced his Agility Arc, his deployment and fleet management software for Digit.
“The automation platform has all the features you would expect from a fleet management system, including battery and charging management, workflow management, and robotic task processing,” Wise told TechCrunch. “But it also has other aspects needed for system deployment and configuration, as well as remote monitoring and support of the system. This is basically everything he does related to managing a digital fleet on one screen. It’s something that can be done.”
Johnson, who previously led Magic Leap's shaky pivot to enterprise, says the new enterprise software gives him confidence that the new company is on firmer footing than its predecessor. .
“What was really reassuring to me when I learned about the new cloud automation system was that it was a sign of maturity for the company,” she says. “It's not just a device, it's meant to be integrated. Very often [Johnson’s former employer] Microsoft, that's going to be a stumbling block. You end up with an isolated system that isn't integrated with everything else and doesn't provide the value it could. So the fact that they can integrate with his WMS system and other things that the company already uses is a big deal for them. ”
Image credit: Brian Heater
For Johnson, Modex was a huge learning experience. She spoke to us from Japan last week, where she just competed in the Tokyo Marathon. She hopped on a plane back to the US over the weekend to see first-hand the supply chain/logistics world she's now a part of. She said, “She wanted to make sure she was here to see not just the customers, but the environment in which the devices would operate. We're going to spend a lot of time today walking around and immersing ourselves in that environment.”
Johnson's main pitch as CEO is a shortcut to ROI. This is achievable due to the fact that Digit is available through his RaaS (robotics-as-a-service) model, which is becoming increasingly popular as a way to encourage companies to take the leap. Customers can now pilot these systems without worrying about large upfront costs.
Ultimately, our customers will shape Digit's future. The floor model that demos the automotive workflow is equipped with a pair of new end-he effectors. Rather than the flipper-style attachments the company has introduced in the past, this Digit has his four fingers on each hand, with two pairs of hooked fingers pointing in opposite directions. However, this does not mean that you can operate your mobile dexterously. Instead, it's designed to do what Digit has always done: transport totes.
However, the tote here is so wide (as is customary in the automotive line) that the robot cannot hug the bag with its arms on either side. Instead, the effector grips the front of the tote. This method provides a more stable grip on boxes that often have heavy objects rolling around inside.
Wise envisions a version of Digit in the not-too-distant future that would allow the end effector to be swapped out as needed.
“If you look specifically at end effectors, there is about 60 years of prior art,” she says. “All [Modex], if you look around, these robotic arms all have different end effectors. That's very understandable. There is something called “arm end tooling”. Exchangeable. Our goal as a product is to have interchangeable end-of-arm tools and ultimately automate the process. ”
“But interestingly, the five-fingered, 27-degree-of-freedom hand had 0% of the solutions,” Shelton said, referring to what could be seen as a dig at some humanoid robot competition. says. He added: “Some of our competitors have publicly stated that they are using five-fingered hands, basically for branding purposes.”
As for what competitors should focus on, Wise believes Agility's competitors should focus on safety, a big concern when introducing new technology into a warehouse environment. “We need to be clear about safety as an industry,” she says. “As an industry we need to come together and decide on safety standards.”
Johnson added that businesses need to focus on the task at hand. “Focus on the here and now, and what you can do,” she says. “Everyone needs a roadmap, but stay focused and prove it.”