If automobiles are currently its core business, Tesla is also interested in robotics. And among his most ambitious projects, there is the Optimus robot. This is a humanoid that the company is developing to carry out repetitive or dangerous tasks, and which could also serve as a domestic robot. At the moment, we do not know when Tesla will market this robot. But in the meantime, Elon Musk’s company regularly publishes videos that show the progress of the project.
A new stage
For example, recently we relayed a video published by Tesla which showed the skills of the new hand of the Optimus robot which, thanks to new degrees of freedom, is capable of catching a tennis ball. And more recently, it is Optimus’ legs that have been highlighted by the company. While we are used to watching videos of Optimus in Tesla factories, on a stage or in a laboratory, the new video posted by the company on X shows a humanoid robot walking outside.
This video is important because it shows that the robot is now capable of walking on this type of terrain which is more complicated to manage than the floor of a factory or laboratory. Milan Kovac, head of engineering at Optimus, says this is a place where he has slipped before. “What’s really crazy here is that for this, Optimus is actually blind! It keeps balance without video (for now), with only other onboard sensors consumed by a neural network running in ~2-3ms on its onboard computer”also explained the manager. But the Optimus team already intends to add vision, so that the robot can better plan its routes. This will also have to make the gait more natural and teach the robot to fall to minimize damage, when a fall is inevitable.
New uses in sight
The fact that Optimus will be able to walk outdoors will be very important, since it will allow more uses of this robot, which is already being tested in Tesla factories. At the moment, humanoid robots are under development. But over the next decade, the market could explode. Some analysts predict that this market could be worth tens of billions of dollars in ten years. And Elon Musk even predicts that by 2040, there will be more robots than humans on Earth.
- Tesla’s Optimus robot is now capable of walking outdoors, on floors more difficult to manage than factory floors
- However, Tesla engineers still need to improve posture and the robot must learn to fall to limit damage when a fall is unavoidable.
- The fact that the robot can work outside is important, because this will allow it to have more uses.
