Tesla has released the latest developments in the second-generation humanoid robot Optimus.
On May 5th, the official Tesla Optimus account posted a 90 second demonstration video of Optimus robots working in Tesla factories on social media platform X, with the accompanying text saying, "We are currently working hard to become useful!"
In the video, Optimus is sorting battery cells on the production line. The video shows that Optimus' end-to-end neural network has been trained to accurately package battery cells in Tesla factories; Optimus runs in real-time on the robot's FSD computer, relying solely on 2D cameras, hand touch, and force sensors; Optimus utilizes its legs to maintain balance while relying on neural networks to drive the entire upper body.
The video also showcases the working process from the perspective of Optimus and introduces that very precise actions are required in sorting operations, and the fault tolerance is very low. Optimus's neural network can automatically locate the next idle slot. In addition, Optimus can autonomously recover from failures.
The video also shows operators wearing VR glasses and gloves, collecting data through remote operation.
In addition, the video showcases Optimus walking in Tesla's office and introduces that Optimus is now not only walking faster, but also walking farther and farther.
It is worth noting that Tesla CEO Elon Musk also revealed on X that Optimus' hands will reach 22 degrees of freedom (the number of independently movable joints) later this year.
The human hand has 22 degrees of freedom (including the wrist). According to information previously released by Tesla, the Optimus hand has 11 degrees of freedom, while many competitors only have 6-7 degrees of freedom. The 22 degrees of freedom of Optimus means that its biomimetic degree will be further enhanced.
Subsequently, Optimus project leader Milan Kovac forwarded a video of Tesla Optimus and posted an article introducing the specific progress of Optimus.
He stated that in the past few months, Tesla has manufactured more robots and collected artificial intelligence data from them. At present, the team has trained and deployed a neural network that allows Optimus to start performing useful tasks such as picking up cells passed down from the conveyor belt and accurately placing them into the tray.
This neural network operates completely end-to-end, which means that it can directly generate joint control sequences using only videos from the robot's 2D camera and onboard ontology sensors. It runs entirely on the embedded FSD computer of the robot, powered by onboard batteries.
Kovac said that although Optimus is not perfect enough and its speed is still a bit slow, its success rate is getting higher and the frequency of failures is getting lower. The team is still training Optimus to recover from failed cases and has shown autonomous corrective behavior.
Kovac also emphasized that Tesla is currently working hard to make Optimus move faster and cope with more complex terrains, but all of this work will not sacrifice its "humanoid" nature. He revealed that more updates will be released soon.
Julian Ibarz, an engineer responsible for Tesla's robotic artificial intelligence, also posted that Tesla has improved the reliability of the entire Optimus team's learning behavior and decided to introduce some robots in the factory to perform a truly useful task: classifying batteries. The autonomous behavior demonstrated in the video can continue to run for several hours until the robot needs to be charged.
Jim Fan, senior scientist at NVIDIA and project leader for general embodied agent research, also praised Optimus' latest progress in a post. He stated that the Optimus team has released an important update, which has allowed us to learn about their "human data collection farm," which in my opinion is Optimus' biggest leading advantage.
The Optimus robot prototype was first unveiled on October 1, 2022 at Tesla's Second Artificial Intelligence Day. Musk has repeatedly emphasized that the Optimus robot project will be more valuable than the automotive business and FSD.