Digit uses its hands made of rubber balls to lift boxes that weigh up to 40 pounds, and has the ability to sidestep objects in its path and walk up staircases.
In may, damion shelton, the CEO of Agility Robotics, watched nervously as his new robot, Digit, attempted a groundbreaking feat: delivering a package from a self-driving vehicle to a front porch. “The robot has only been assembled for a couple months,” he says. “Now, it needs to stand and walk on its own. Will it fall and damage itself or deliver the package?”
Digit, a five-foot-tall, 88-pound bipedal robot, stands upright on thin, long, ostrich-like legs. It has 3D-printed rubber balls instead of fingers, a laser-range (LiDAR) sensor, a 3D camera for its head, and a battery-pack that lets it run for three hours on a single charge. Capable of picking up packages that weigh up to 40 pounds, Digit is designed to work in sync with self-driving vehicles, unfolding itself from the trunks of cars to deliver items across short distances within neighborhoods.
Continue reading… “Meet your future package delivery team: A self-driving vehicle and a robot”