A YouTube commentary (by LARRUZ) describing Deep Robotics’ humanoid robot DR01 and recent rapid developments in Chinese humanoid robotics. The speaker highlights DR01’s autonomous adaptation, stability on uneven terrain (including recovery from pushes and a 40cm drop), proprietary joint hardware (J60 and J100), and claimed mobility specs (walking >1.6 m/s, 18 cm step, 25° slope).
Now, China have been recently on fire when it comes to humanoid robotics. I would count honestly, the fact that They've released over 15 robots just in the past year alone. Wouldn't surprise me if they eventually do become the leader of robotics or the leader in robotics. Considering just how many people they have working in the humanoid robot space, their technology is just truly astonishing. And the rate of development that these Chinese companies are moving at is something to behold. It feels like almost every week there's a new humanoid robot on the market. And oftentimes what we do see is the ability of these robots getting more and more durable, more and more agile and more flexible. And it was only a couple of days ago that we saw the ridiculous engine AI robot that was able to walk like a human. Now, why this humanoid robot actually stood out to me was because this is one of the humanoid robots that was of course, tested out in the wild. It's quite rare that you see humanoid robots being tested in such a strange environment. The reason that I think this is something that is notable is, is because when we look at the environment that it's being tested in, this is a robot that is being tested out in the wild. Now, this is truly incredible. When we look at this kind of testing, what it does mean is that this robot is able to navigate new spaces autonomously without falling over. Now, of course, this company could have hidden the those areas where it fell over. If you guys do see at the start of the video, we can consistently see that this individual is pushing the robot forwards and backwards and it isn't even managing to fall over at all. Which leads me to believe that this robot is completely agile and stable, even on uneven grounds. Now, this is really important because it's, it means that this kind of robot can be used in a variety of different environments. Many times we see robots in these perfect, pristine environments that have them hooked up to some kind of contraption that allows them to walk freely without the risk of falling over. But not in this example. Even in this example, the Deep Robotics team goes as far as to push the robot off a 40cm cliff without it falling over. I've seen many robots, including many humanoid robots, fall at much smaller examples. So this is something that I think isn't getting the credit it deserves. There doesn't seem to be much in the way of hands, but it seems that this kind of robot is just mainly focused on traversing rocky environments with its unique platform. Now, one of the things that this robot they talk about and one of the things that they've know said is that this robot features an AI plus intelligent system. It's described as an intelligent physical agent. It integrates advanced sensing and perception capabilities with autonomous learning, allowing it to adapt to complex environments and perform high precision tasks. And you can see that it says that the Dr.01 can autonomously generate new new behavioral skills in response to changing environments and task requirements. That must mean that when presented with a new environment, it's able to generate a new behavioral skill and able to quickly adapt. Now of course I don't think this is in the crazy or insane levels, but this is the first inklings of the kind of robots that we do need for the future. Oftentimes most robots do fail in novel environments because they don't have the data mapped out. But if we can get robots that are able to autonomously adapt, then that would be a huge step. Now, one of the things that they actually talk about, which is their proprietary thing, is essentially their proprietary joint technology. Well, I'm guessing that this is what helps enable the robot to stay so stable, is that this technology is equipped with deep robotics proprietary lightweight J60 joints and high power J100 joints. These joints provide the robot with highly flexible movement capabilities, enabling it to maintain balance and stability even in challenging conditions, which we saw at the start. It was able to walk around in those environments. And, and for those of you who are saying that this isn't impressive, I can tell you a number of times where even myself or even a few of my friends have stumbled and even fallen over at the slightest inconvenience. So for those of you stating that this isn't impressive, trust me, you're overestimating humans capability. So with this kind of proprietary joint technology, I do wonder if the entire space of robotics are is going to be moving forward, as this company does offer certain joints for sale. So it will be interesting to see what kind of an ecosystem they do have, because I know that with AI companies they certainly aren't sharing the source. Now it also talks about flexible mobility, stating that the Dr.01 has a walking speed of over 1.6 meters per second, and that it can navigate 18 centimeter steps, 25 degree slopes and uneven terrain. And it can swiftly recover, balance and maintain stable walking even under unknown disturbances such as slippery surfaces and external forces. I mean, that's actually really incredible when you think about it. If someone was to say, okay, I need you to walk up these stairs, but I'm going to push you while doing it and you have to make sure you don't fall over. I would argue that that's a little bit better than most humans in terms of stability, because if someone pushed me down a flight of stairs while I'm walking, I don't think I would have it in me to immediately go ahead and stabilize myself. Of course I would immediately try, but I'm not gonna lie, if I'm walking down the stairs and you push me, I'm probably gonna fall. So I think this kind of technology is gearing us all towards the era where we kind of develop these super intelligent droids that could potentially kill. Sorry for piling into the Terminator stereotype, but the more and more I think about the fact that when we look at these videos, we're constantly training these robots to be so stable that even if we push them over whilst they're doing the most agile things, they stay completely upright. And that's not something that most humans have anyways. Now, it also talks about fusion perception capability, which is where the Dr.01 integrates the robot's own perception and environmental perception, achieving stable traversal across complex and discrete terrains through a learning algorithm that combines sensing and control. So this is where the ability to traverse complex terrain allows it to do so effortlessly. I'd love to see exactly how these robots are trained from the moment they're falling over all the way to the moment they're able to do what we see in the videos in an incredible way. Now, this has been a pretty crazy time for humanoid robots, and I can't wait to see the advances. And it seems like we're finally starting to get some breakthroughs. Let me know what you guys thought about this humanoid robot, and until next time, I'll see you in the next video.
