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"Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily" August 5th (Editor Song Ziqiao)Fresh from its “training” at the BMW factory, humanoid robot startup Figure has unveiled a new generation product that’s even more powerful – Figure 02.

On August 2, local time, Figure released a trailer for Figure 02 and announced that it will officially release the product on August 7, Beijing time. Compared with the video demonstration of Figure 01 equipped with Open AI GPT4, the focus of this demonstration is on hardware, and it is expected that the hardware capabilities will be greatly improved.

The company's founder and CEO Brett Adcock said confidently:Figure 02 is the best humanoid robot on earth。

This inevitably reminds people of the flag set when Figure released its concept phone last year - to compete with Tesla Optimus. However, the trailer of Figure 02 was criticized as "copying Optimus".

Figure 02 Facial contour

Tesla's second-generation humanoid robot Optimus

Objectively speaking, Figure 02 has not yet released a full-body picture. It is obviously not advisable to judge that Figure 02 is an imitator of Optimus based solely on a facial profile that resembles Optimus Prime.

Putting aside the controversy over appearance, compared with Figure 02's strong industrial mechanical style,The change in the appearance of Figure 02 may mean that Figure has begun to create a more humane image that is more inclined towards the consumer market in order to expand the C-end market.

Figure 02

After all, the long-term goal of Figure is to train a world model.It will enable it to operate billions of ToC household humanoid robots. At this stage, Figure's strategy is still ToB, and is deployed on a large scale in highly repetitive and labor-intensive fields such as industrial manufacturing and logistics warehouses where there is a shortage of labor.

Figure's earliest product concept map

Hardware upgrade

From the video,Figure highlights the new humanoid robot's joints, actuators, humanoid feet and dexterous hands. The freedom of the head and the whole body has been greatly increased. For example, the legs and torso can rotate at least 180 degrees.。

The arm joint actuator A2 in Figure 02 has a torque of 50NM, and the corresponding maximum angle range of joint movement is 148°. The lower limb leg joint shows two types of rotational joint actuators: the L1 model with a torque of 150NM is used in the thigh near the hip joint, and the maximum angle range of joint movement is 195°; the L4 model with a torque of 150NM is used in the knee joint, and the maximum angle range of joint movement is 135°.

in addition,A relatively novel design is the new composite material used in Figure 02.The newly added honeycomb compressible tissue near the knees or elbows is expected to provide motion cushioning while achieving lightweight and enhanced heat dissipation performance.

The dot-matrix black skin of the hand is expected to integrate tactile sensors, which will greatly enhance the robot's tactile perception ability.The increased friction helps to grasp and manipulate various objects. At the same time, the overall design of its fingers is more natural and close to normal people's hands, and the fingers are more flexible.

▌The founder is called "the next Musk"

To briefly review Figure, its team size is less than 100 people so far. It released a concept video in March 2023; it demonstrated its walking ability in October 2023; in January 2024, Figure 01 caused heated discussion with a video of "learning to make coffee in 10 hours". It took only 10 hours of end-to-end training to autonomously complete the entire process of opening the machine cover, putting in coffee, and starting the machine; in March 2024, 13 days after announcing its cooperation with OpenAI, Figure released a demonstration video of Figure 01 powered by OpenAI's large model; shortly thereafter, the company's customized version of Figure 01 was delivered to the BMW factory.

Figure 01 finished its work at the BMW factory in early July. According to Adcock, Figure 01 has completed the development and construction of Figure in AI embodiment, including the normal operation of the system and the data of real-world operation.

That is to say,In just one and a half years, the Figure humanoid robot has made the leap from concept to prototype and then to commercial application, achieving a closed loop in the data collection, model building and commercialization of the main system and real-life scenarios.

In addition, founder Adcock has nearly 20 years of entrepreneurial experience in the technology field. As early as the age of 26, he founded the online talent market Vettery, which aims to solve human capital problems and match the right people with the right job opportunities. It was later acquired by Adecco Group, the world's largest recruitment company, for US$110 million.

The media called him "the next Musk". Last September, on the "My First Million" show, host Sam Parr labeled Adcock "Elon Musk 2.0" on the video cover, marked his net worth of $3 billion, and said that within 10 years he would become a figure like Howard Hughes and Elon Musk.

This can explain why Figure has attracted a large number of Silicon Valley giants and star venture capitalists before it has made a profit. Figure announced in early March that it had raised about $675 million from giants such as Amazon founder Bezos, Nvidia, OpenAI and Microsoft, bringing its company valuation to $2.6 billion. Its investors also include Intel's venture capital arm LG Innotek, Samsung's investment group, venture capital firm Parkway Venture Capital, Align Ventures and Wood Sister's ARK Fund.