Humanoid
Agility Robotics has spent more than ten years developing humanoid robots, and in that time it has produced five distinct versions of its Digit platform. The company has now released Digit 5, a milestone that traces its lineage back to the bipedal running robot Cassie and reflects a decade of iteration from research lab to factory floor.
Agility’s origins lie in the Dynamic Robotics Lab at Oregon State University. The company has since expanded to three offices across the country, more than 400 employees, and a factory capable of building up to 10,000 robots annually. Its first robot, Cassie, took its first steps in 2016 and was optimized to run fast, featuring ostrich-like legs that would remain a hallmark of Agility’s robots until Digit 5. Co-Founder and Chief Robot Officer Jonathan Hurst described Cassie as representing the R&D phase of the company, noting that arriving at a bird-like leg configuration was “entirely coincidental, but promising and encouraging.” He explained that ostriches can run 40 miles an hour and keep going all day long, so the company pursued that configuration to achieve the same goal.
The latest versions of Digit, Agility’s Co-Founder and Chief Robot Officer Jonathan Hurst told The Robot Report, are built around the realities that come with doing actual work in partners’ facilities.
Cassie continued to break records even after Agility moved on to other iterations. In 2022, the robot ran 100 meters with no falls in 24.73 seconds at OSU’s Whyte Track and Field Center, establishing a Guinness World Record for the fastest 100 meters by a bipedal robot. Agility released the first iteration of Digit in 2017, making it a very early entrant to the humanoid market, which Hurst acknowledged now seems to grow more crowded every day.
With Digit 5, Agility’s focus has shifted toward the practical demands of deployment. Hurst said the latest versions of Digit are built around the realities that come with doing actual work in partners’ facilities, a departure from the performance-driven design of Cassie. The company’s growth to over 400 employees and a factory with capacity for up to 10,000 robots annually positions it to supply those partners at scale.
Source: The Robot Report