Agility’s new humanoid robot will stop, squat to avoid harming human coworkers

Unleashing the upgraded robot

Beyond being designed to operate safely around humans, Digit 5 also features an upgraded leg design compared to its predecessor that allows it to repeatedly lift up to 50 pound loads. Such capability makes the robot suitable to cover all single-person lift tasks as defined by the workplace safety regulations of the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

The new humanoid robot also has a battery capable of lasting 90 minutes on a single charge that can recharge in just nine minutes. That enables Digit 5 to perform more than 20 hours of work within a 24-hour period by spending most of its time operating rather than charging.

Compared to the older Digit 4 robot, Digit 5 stands taller, at 5 feet, 11 inches, and has the capability to reach heights of up to 7.2 feet, compared to Digit 4’s reach of 5.5 feet. That makes Digit 5 better able to reach the same shelves that average-size adults can reach.

Digit 5 also comes with a swappable gripper design that enables new hands or “end-effectors” to be quickly installed for various manipulation tasks. Combined with new AI-based skills, the swappable end-effectors allow Digit 5 to handle a wider variety of workplace tasks beyond just moving around totes filled with items.

The humanoid robot’s ability to work safely around people will allow it to help stack and package goods onto pallets and pause while a person swaps out the pallets, or safely move through aisles where people may also be working, Velagapudi said. In those scenarios, “it’s not really practical to constrain the robot within a physical safety cage,” he said.

Having a humanoid robot with such “cooperative safety” features enables the robotic workforce to get productive work done in the same space as humans while operating at a safe distance, Velagapudi said. Once this is proven in commercial deployments, it could lay the foundation for the next big step of enabling “collaborative safety,” where the humanoids work directly with humans in close proximity.