Meet Apollo, the ‘iPhone’ of humanoid robots:

Humanoids handling menial tasks or building habitats on the lunar surface might sound like something out of science fiction, or even another world. But the team at Austin-based robotics startup Apptronik envision a future in which general-purpose robots handle “dull, dirty and dangerous” jobs so that humans no longer need to expend their energy on those activities.

The design of Apptronik’s latest humanoid robot, called Apollo, was revealed this Wednesday (23). The robot is on the same scale as a human being, measuring 1.7 meters tall and weighing 72.6 kilograms.

Apollo can lift 55 pounds (25 kg) and is designed to be mass-produced and work safely alongside humans. The robot uses electricity, rather than hydraulics which are not considered as safe, and has a four-hour battery that can be swapped out to run for a 22-hour workday.

To avoid discomfort with the appearance of humanoid robots, Austin-based company Argodesign equipped the Apollo with features that are intended to appear approachable – and even user-friendly.

The robot has digital chest panels that provide clear communication about remaining battery life, the current task it is working on, when it will finish and what it will do next. Apollo also has a face and intentional movements, such as turning his head to indicate where he is going.

Apollo’s initial goal is to put it to work in logistics, taking on physically demanding roles within warehouses to improve the supply chain by addressing labor shortages. But the Apptronik team has a long-term vision for Apollo that spans at least the next decade.

“Our goal is to build versatile robots to do all the things we don’t want to do to help us here on Earth and eventually one day explore the moon, Mars and beyond,” said Jeff Cardenas, co-founder and CEO of Apptronik. .

Designing a humanoid

Prior to starting Apptronik in 2016, team members worked at the Human-Centered Robotics Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin.

“The lab’s focus was on how humans and robots will interact in the future,” Cardenas said. “As humans, our most valuable resource is time, and our time here is limited. And as toolmakers, we can now build ourselves tools that give us more time back.”

Still in the lab, the team was selected to work on the Valkyrie, a NASA robot, during the DARPA Robotics Challenge between 2012 and 2013.

The robot, which stands 1.9 meters tall and weighs 136 kilograms, is a bipedal humanoid robot capable of dexterous manipulation and walking (including over and around obstacles), carrying items and opening doors, according to Shaun Azimi, lead from the skilled robotics team at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The electric robot has been modified and improved since its debut in 2013 and is currently being tested as a remote caretaker of unmanned and offshore power installations in Australia.

Apollo’s roots are in Valkyrie’s design, and the team at Apptronik spent years building unique robots and components that culminated in a humanoid that could function in environments designed for people. Assembly-line robots are usually bolted to the ground or attached to a wall and can only function in spaces designed to accommodate them, Cardenas said.

Rather than highly specialized robots that can only serve one purpose, Apptronik wanted the Apollo to be the “iPhone of robots,” Cardenas said.

“The goal is to build a robot that can do thousands of different things,” he said. “It’s a software upgrade before doing a new task or new behavior.”

Eventually, the Apollo will be less than the average car price. Traditional robots rely on high-precision parts. But the introduction of cameras and artificial intelligence systems has allowed the development of robots that rely less on pre-programming and instead respond better to their environments, meaning parts used in production are more affordable, Cardenas said.

This year, Apptronik is focused on securing commercial customers and manufacturers who are interested in how Apollo could improve their logistics. The company aims to be in full commercial production by the end of 2024.

Apollo will start in factory and warehouse settings, performing simple tasks like moving boxes and pushing carts. But over time, the Apollo’s functionality will increase through new models and upgrades to the point where it can be used in construction, electronics production, retail spaces, home delivery and even elderly care.

human movements

At the heart of Apollo’s design are the actuators, or robotic muscles. The Apptronik team worked on more than 35 iterations of the key actuators that allow Apollo to walk, flex its arms and grip objects like a human.

“Humans have about 300 muscles in our bodies,” said Dr. Nick Paine, co-founder and chief technology officer of Apptronik. “As engineers, our goal is to simplify complexity, so the Apollo robot has about 30 different muscle groups within its system that you need to perform basic actions and activities.”

Before Apollo, Apptronik focused on what it called a rapidly developing humanoid robot. Although it included limited manipulation capabilities and simple arms, the design focus was on improving the robot’s locomotion.

“The way we develop robotics is really trying to get the hardware and software to mature in tandem with each other,” Paine said.

Apollo’s head contains a perception camera, while sensors in its torso help the robot map a 360-degree view of its environment and determine where it can move. The robot’s “brain”, or main computer, is also located in its chest.

Sensors help the robot stay oriented while walking over or around obstacles. This type of locomotion will be critical as Apollo moves into more uncertain environments, such as the exterior and, someday, even the surface of the Moon.

“Robots need to be able to work in the same kind of chaos and uncertainty that humans can live with,” Paine said.

Eventually, Apollo will be autonomous, but the Apptronik team still wants there to be a level of control over what the robot will do. While controls will first work via tablets or smart devices, in the future a human should be able to walk up to the Apollo and tell it what to do, Cardenas said.

“To infinity and beyond”

Apptronik acts as one of NASA’s partners working on humanoid robot projects. Earth is a proving ground for Apollo, and one day, a future version of the robot will be able to work in dangerous space conditions so humans don’t have to.

It will take several development steps to prepare humanoid robots to work in the vacuum of space so that Apollo can first go to the International Space Station, Paine said.

“For space exploration, we really need systems that have more than one ability that are flexible and adaptable, both for a variety of tasks that we know about and perhaps for some tasks that we won’t anticipate until they actually come up in the course of exploration,” he said. Azimi.

The current architecture of NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to return humans to the moon and eventually land crewed missions on Mars, envisions a pressurized rover on the lunar surface once the Artemis VI mission is due in 2030, Azimi said. This period of lunar exploration in the early 2030s is when Azimi thinks robots like Apollo might also come in handy.

The benefit of using humanoid robots like Apollo in space is that they can be used to build and test environments designed for humans – such as lunar and Martian habitats – before astronauts arrive. But robots will face challenges and need to be designed with fewer limitations than their terrestrial counterparts. For example, a humanoid robot might need to crawl inside the environment of an RV-sized rover and still have the strength and flexibility to open pressurized doors, Azimi said.

“My hope and my dream is that we will have general purpose robots put into space within the next 10 years and that we will be able to realize some of the benefits of having robotic systems that can allow the crew to focus much more on things that humans do best – explore and make scientific discoveries,” said Azimi.