The ground plan for Determine AI’s BotQ manufacturing facility. | Supply: Determine AI
Humanoid robots have been slowly making their approach into the workforce. Nonetheless, one query stays unanswered: How will robotics firms make these complicated techniques at scale? Determine AI Inc. final week launched BotQ, its new high-volume manufacturing unit for humanoids. The corporate mentioned BotQ’s first-generation manufacturing line shall be able to manufacturing as much as 12,000 robots per 12 months.
Determine AI mentioned is bringing its manufacturing operations in-house to regulate the construct course of and high quality. The firm mentioned this will even assist assure that it delivers high-functioning robots to the market.
San Jose, Calif.-based Determine mentioned it has spent the previous eight months constructing an environment friendly and scalable manufacturing course of from the bottom up. It mentioned it additionally spent the previous six months making a basis to help quantity manufacturing with software program together with manufacturing execution system (MES), product lifecycle administration (PLM), enterprise useful resource planning (ERP), and warehouse administration system (WMS).
Finally, Determine mentioned it should use humanoid robots in its manufacturing course of to construct different humanoids. As extra robots work on manufacturing traces, the corporate mentioned will probably be in a position to enhance its capability. Determine expects to start out later this 12 months.
Within the means of retooling its robotic structure, Determine began two new groups, a security crew, and a reliability crew. As well as, the corporate mentioned it’s rising its deal with on robotic reliability.
The reliability crew at BotQ is accountable for working extremely accelerated lifecycle checks. These will assist the corporate perceive the lifespan of its robotic.
The reliability crew wants specialised tools, together with high-temperature ovens, devoted actuator testers, and failure evaluation tools to know root trigger failures. Utilizing this knowledge, Determine mentioned it could inform the robotic designers of enhancements wanted to make sure its reliability metrics are met.
Determine AI introduced in late 2024 that its robots are shifting improvement and trials to industrial use. The corporate has delivered its Determine 02 system to a paying buyer.
Determine AI gained a 2024 RBR50 award for its fast tempo of innovation. Since rising from stealth in January 2023, the corporate has iterated on its humanoid, examined its robotic on a manufacturing line, and delivered techniques to a paying buyer.
Determine AI designs for top manufacturing charges
After constructing and internally manufacturing Determine 02, the Determine crew recorded and analyzed cycle occasions for each course of, from half fabrication to last meeting. It discovered the biggest driver of meeting time began on the root: half rely and manufacturing processes.
Determine initially designed Determine 02 as a prototype. This meant that it used excessive complexity, tight tolerance, and sluggish pc numerical management (CNC) machining processes. CNC from billet is a good course of for prototyping and holds worth for high-tolerance parts. Nonetheless, it doesn’t scale effectively when attempting to drastically cut back each half prices and time to make parts.
As well as, Determine mentioned in a weblog publish that it has labored to cut back its half rely. It takes time to hitch two components collectively, so the corporate emphasised combining many components into one to cut back cycle time.
All of those issues went into Determine’s next-generation robotic, Determine 03. This robotic is the corporate’s manufacturing robotic constructed for affordability and high-volume manufacturing.
To attain excessive manufacturing charges, Determine switched to tooled processes reminiscent of injection molding, diecasting, metallic injection molding, and stamping. The corporate claimed they enabled it to avoid wasting 1000’s of hours on manufacturing.
Determine mentioned components that beforehand spent over every week on a CNC machine can now be manufactured in beneath 20 seconds with complicated metal molds. Whereas switching to those processes comes with a excessive capital value, the corporate mentioned it expects a fast return on funding (ROI) when contemplating its robotic volumes for 2025 and past.
Determine invests in its provide chain
Not like industrial automation, humanoid robots don’t but have well-established provide chains with varied tiers of producers constructing a system’s modules. Determine mentioned this led it to design virtually the whole robotic from scratch. This consists of the actuators, motors, sensors, battery pack, and electronics.
Determine mentioned the shortage of a mature provide chain has been one of many greatest hurdles it has confronted when defining the place and the way components could be made. So, it determined to focus closely on the meeting of its core expertise: actuators, palms, and batteries. The corporate also can name on outdoors distributors as wanted to fabricate piece components.
As well as, the firm employed a crew of world provide managers to assist kind sturdy partnerships with distributors who’ve the experience to supply its complicated parts. Determine 03 mentioned it has greater than three-dozen commodities, a lot of which require distinctive processes reminiscent of motor winding, versatile OLED screens, or exact optical designs.
Determine chosen all of its exterior companions to have the ability to scale with it. The corporate claimed that its provide chain can simply scale to 100,000 robots or 3 million actuators within the subsequent 4 years.
Determine decides the place to automate
After securing its provide chain, Determine wanted to construct up its manufacturing crew and infrastructure. The corporate mentioned it employed specialists in designing manufacturing traces, optimizing them, and understanding how you can optimize the method of turning supplies into merchandise.
Determine defined that its manufacturing engineers are answerable for breaking the robotic meeting up into sub-stations, choosing the right instruments to hitch the components collectively, designing and procuring fixtures for the meeting line, and understanding how you can check the components as they quickly flip right into a robotic. The engineers additionally present design-change suggestions to the corporate’s mechanical, electrical, and software program groups to lower manufacturing cycle time.
One key side of its new product manufacturing is knowing which operations on the manufacturing line must be automated and which must be guide. Traditionally, humanoid robots have been inbuilt low volumes, and automation has been uncommon. Determine has chosen within the brief time period to automate key components of the method by metrics reminiscent of high quality and velocity.
An instance of automation for high quality is the automated grease-dispensing station for its motor gearboxes. The corporate mentioned it could management the placement and quantity of the gearbox grease way more precisely with an automatic device than with a guide grease gun.
An instance of automation for velocity is Determine’s cell check and cargo station. Right here, a robotic is much sooner than a human at choosing up, scanning, and testing each battery cell earlier than meeting into the battery pack.
Creating the infrastructure to permit robots to construct robots
To face up a profitable manufacturing unit, Determine AI added new instruments to its improvement course of. It mentioned the MES is the spine of its manufacturing operation, and the corporate is constructing it in-house.
The MES integrates all features of manufacturing right into a single, real-time digital ecosystem. From monitoring components by means of the availability chain to monitoring meeting effectivity and making certain stringent high quality management, Determine mentioned the MES permits it to function at peak effectivity.
Determine mentioned its MES integrates with its Web of Issues (IoT) gadgets. This permits it to watch course of move, observe family tree, and supply a digital database of all of the check knowledge associated to each element within the robotic.
The corporate added that BotQ will combine its humanoids into its meeting traces. With this month’s introduction of the Helix modal, Determine mentioned it could use its personal robots to assemble key parts on its manufacturing line.
The humanoids might act as materials handlers, shifting items between totally different stations while not having to put in cumbersome and rigid conveyor techniques.
The mix of AI-driven automation and human oversight permits for a hybrid workforce that maximizes velocity, precision, and flexibility, mentioned Determine. The usage of robots to construct extra robots will speed up manufacturing timelines whereas minimizing human intervention in repetitive duties, the corporate mentioned.
On the 2025 Robotics Summit & Expo in Boston on April 30 and Might 1, classes will embody “The State of Humanoids” and “Redesigning Atlas: Boston Dynamics on the Way forward for Humanoids.”
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