Unitree As2-W

Posted by MehrdadKhnzd 9 hours ago

Comments

Comment by Aboutplants 8 hours ago

This is way more of what I thought robotics companies should be working on over their dumb 4 legged dog like robots. Wheels were invented for a reason and we are awfully good at moving things around on them at speed. Combining multiple attributes into a single form will ultimately prove to be the winning formula.

Just like in a year or two you will start to see more appendages than just two arms on humanoids.

Comment by schobi 5 hours ago

I think this is a clever idea.

A hub motor for each leg adds some weight, but you get a rolling mode on flat terrain with great range.

At the same time you keep obstacle climbing mode with stationary wheels, and can use the leg actuators as shock absorbers and obstacle avoidance on a bumpy path. Best of both worlds, with a new software challenge.

Comment by altruios 5 hours ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA8WuXDXfcI

relevant link.

I remember watching this video with the takeaway: if you want it secure, build it yourself... which is what I am currently doing.

Comment by echelon 3 hours ago

We need open source versions of these.

1. We need the capability to build the servos, actuators, etc. Supply chain, factories, specialized vendors.

2. We need to dump the firmware, decompile it, extract the models, and liberate it all. AI will help immensely with that. We can literally hijack everything software that isn't delivered over cloud now - so this is the easy part. We can then fine tune, adapt to new tasks, etc. Grabbing the brain = easy.

So the hard part is the hardware itself. The brain will belong to us soon enough.

Robotics distillation will be a big thing. You won't even have to farm out billions of requests across residential gateways. You just need to buy one unit.

You can't stop the software from becoming open.

Startup idea: AI model to dump the firmware from DJI, Unitree, etc. etc. and turn it into human-readable code. Broad utility across every industry with tons of willing buyers.

Hardware, though. We need that part.

Comment by arjie 6 hours ago

They never give you dev access without paying like 10x the price.

Comment by syntaxing 6 hours ago

Interesting, you can’t use their SDK or you can’t load whatever you want on it?

Comment by arjie 6 hours ago

E.g. Unitree R1 has attractive low price but missing the “secondary development” pack (access to Jetson Orin and all the firmware stuff to let you run custom software). It’s all just their software. Useless tool. Click button and it dances. Then what.

Comment by numpad0 5 hours ago

I've seen a similar setup with a different Chinese cutting edge product. App access is free, ssh is open, but API keys and the ssh password is priced like a cheap car.

Comment by orbital-decay 5 hours ago

I'd love to see an ebike-like vehicle in this spirit. Meant to be ridden, self-balancing, and all-terrain capable.

Comment by aidenn0 1 hour ago

Seems like that would significantly raise the center-of-gravity making it less stable?

Comment by gorjusborg 3 hours ago

Despite being mocked by Henry Ford decades ago, we'll finally get our 'better horse'!

Comment by bijowo1676 5 hours ago

how is this robot seems to have perfect traction ?

its either rolls perfectly without traction or walks uphill with perfect traction ?

is it AI generated video or did they make some groundbreaking success ?

or is it just promo video, showing future potential, not yet developed capabilities ?

Comment by doug_durham 5 hours ago

It doesn't have perfect traction. It stumbles in the videos. This is consistent with other wheeled robots that have come out the last few years.

Comment by jareklupinski 5 hours ago

when can i hop on its back and ride it like an all-terrain ultra-longboard?

Comment by UltraSane 4 hours ago

I love 4 leg robots with wheels because it is a form of locomotion that evolution didn't create and seems to be wildly effective with the wheels allowing for very fast movement on smooth surfaces and the legs acting like a suspension with huge travel range on rough surfaces and then it can switch to walking mode with the wheels acting like ankles. And they can step over obstacles or step up to higher surfaces.

Comment by ThirdShift_RnD 7 hours ago

This thing reminds me of something out of Death stranding, Hideo Kojima was way ahead of his time

Comment by jimmcslim 4 hours ago

You might also say that about Terry Pratchett… see Twoflower and The Luggage.

Comment by ThirdShift_RnD 3 hours ago

Man, this looks like a great read, Thanks!

Comment by tamimio 3 hours ago

I tried Unitree qugv and they were garbage, not so sure about this one

Comment by SilverElfin 8 hours ago

Impressive … and scary. Why is it that this company is moving so fast when others like Boston Dynamics don’t seem to have made much progress?

Comment by saturn8601 5 hours ago

Chinese work ethic driven by overproduction of STEM majors leading to 25% youth unemployment...also they probably stole a lot of the fundamental stuff that was super hard to produce but easy to copy and build on top of.

On the other side: Years of VC focusing on the next great app to make you some cooked eggs instead of investing in companies operating in the physical world.

Comment by yonatan8070 4 hours ago

Their earlier robots (A1, Go 1) have a lot of lineage from Ben Kats' (from MIT) Mini Cheetah project, even down to the shape of the communication protocols used for motor control. I've not had the chance to closely inspect their newer robots, so I can't tell you what's their secret sauce, but I suspect it has as much to do with RL-based control and software as it does with hardware improvements.

Comment by xyzsparetimexyz 2 hours ago

Idk about work ethic, but what are the chances it's a 996 company?

Comment by bijowo1676 4 hours ago

I often hear about "muh china stealing", two questions come to mind:

1. how could they steal something that western companies dont even have yet?

2. for more fundamental stuff, western companies did transfer knowledge themselves by moving factories to China, in exchange for decades of access to China market and exorbitant profits they earned. Where exactly is "supposed stealing" in unitree ?

Comment by numpad0 5 hours ago

There's no use for these robots(even militarily). It's very high tech, but that's it.

Comment by grumbel 3 hours ago

Veho[1] is experimenting[2] with similar kinds of robots for package delivery.

[1] https://www.shipveho.com/rivr

[2] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/d6jU_4XjkTU

Comment by throw310822 3 hours ago

You wait until they mount them with a chainsaw.

Comment by wffurr 8 hours ago

You are assuming this thing is real and not just a web page.

Comment by fooker 7 hours ago

Not that you have much reason to believe a stranger on the internet, but I have seen this in person.

Not doing acrobatics like the marketing video of course, just doing mundane things like going from point A to point B.

Comment by rlt 8 hours ago

Unitree is a huge well known company. You think they'd fake this?

Comment by solarkraft 8 hours ago

The demo images look AI generated, so I can understand the impression that this is vaporware. The demo videos look very real to me however.

Comment by serf 7 hours ago

is using a prototype firmware or hardware platform faking it when you're showing exclusive prototype capabilities and trying to pass them off as reproducible by the production unit?

unitree has done this consistently.

Comment by fragmede 6 hours ago

What does unitree G1 do as a demo that it can't do once you bought one?

Comment by cyanydeez 8 hours ago

they're a chinese company and this is a VC funded western company; so that's half the answer.

The other half is yes, of course, any company will fake it till they make it.

But Unitree is definitely making robots.

Comment by lostmsu 8 hours ago

What's the price?

Comment by IshKebab 6 hours ago

Based on the price of their other robots, probably $5-10k.

Comment by yonatan8070 4 hours ago

The 5-10k$ price is for their consumer-grade robots like the Go 2 or low-end humanoids. I won't be surprised if this monster costs 50,000$ or even more