Human-Centric Robotics

At Agility Robotics, our goal is to build robots to work with, around, and for people. But that doesn't necessarily mean they have to look like people. This shift represents an entirely new era of automation: human-centric robotics. 

Up to this point, there have been other revolutions in robot automation. One example is the rise of fixed-place, position-control arms used for tasks like pick-and-place, spot welding, and CNC machining. These are and will continue to be incredibly valuable tools in manufacturing. 

The next revolution has been autonomous mobile robots that are not fixed in place, such as autonomous forklifts. Once more, these robots have proven to be very useful and will remain so. But their drawback is that the whole warehouse or environment must be designed or retrofitted to accommodate them.

Robots that can operate in human spaces, on our terms, without modifications to the space, represent a completely new era of robotics. This has been a long held dream of humanity, but is only just starting to become a reality.

At Agility, we believe that robots should adapt to the environments that humans have already designed around our own needs, instead of the other way around. This is what we mean by human-centric robotics. It is a description of the intent behind the robot, as opposed to “humanoid” which is a description of the form-factor and appearance of a robot.

Sometimes, when you set out to make something human-centric, it can end up looking somewhat humanoid, such as Digit. Digit has two legs, two arms, an upright torso, and a head, but these attributes weren’t decided upon at the outset. They are a result of designing for efficiency in human spaces, and when we land on the same solution nature developed, it’s an indicator that we are on the right path.

As stated by Agility’s CTO, Jonathan Hurst, “Once we have versatile robots, like Digit, that can operate in our spaces and work with us and around us, it’s going to become ubiquitous. Robots will become part of our daily lives and be very useful and very, very valuable to us.”