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Aboutplants 18 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.
schobi 15 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.
walrus01 6 hours ago [-]
> Wheels were invented for a reason
Literally we have a very old saying that is "don't reinvent the wheel" and yet people persist in doing so, when an already near optimal design exists.
I'm not saying don't do anything new and novel but that if a large portion of the design has already been done for you and you can improve it, like this company has done (wheels on the end of legs!), why not try that first and see if it works before starting over.
smusamashah 30 minutes ago [-]
I want to see it performing in sand or in very dry soil environment too. They didn't show that in these videos.
I remember watching this video with the takeaway: if you want it secure, build it yourself... which is what I am currently doing.
echelon 13 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.
arjie 16 hours ago [-]
They never give you dev access without paying like 10x the price.
syntaxing 16 hours ago [-]
Interesting, you can’t use their SDK or you can’t load whatever you want on it?
arjie 16 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.
numpad0 15 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.
orbital-decay 15 hours ago [-]
I'd love to see an ebike-like vehicle in this spirit. Meant to be ridden, self-balancing, and all-terrain capable.
gorjusborg 12 hours ago [-]
Despite being mocked by Henry Ford decades ago, we'll finally get our 'better horse'!
walrus01 6 hours ago [-]
Build it in the shape of a domesticated Bactrian camel, put the seat in between the humps, use the humps for extra battery (or cargo compartments)
walrus01 6 hours ago [-]
I think you've just nearly described the 'Chevaline' mechanical horses in The Diamond Age, but without the nanotech
aidenn0 11 hours ago [-]
Seems like that would significantly raise the center-of-gravity making it less stable?
mosfets 6 hours ago [-]
I've always wanted something to carry my fishing gear on the jetty, can this do that?
bijowo1676 15 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 ?
overfeed 6 hours ago [-]
Here -and with every product promo video - you are watching curated shots. Non-flattering footage simply will get deleted during edit, except perhaps for the blooper-reel, if that's the company coldly calculates to present a goofy, non-threatening vibe.
dyauspitr 4 hours ago [-]
If I understand your question correctly, I think you may be missing that it can lock the wheels so they don’t roll sometimes like when it’s climbing uphill.
doug_durham 15 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.
UltraSane 13 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.
jareklupinski 14 hours ago [-]
when can i hop on its back and ride it like an all-terrain ultra-longboard?
dyauspitr 4 hours ago [-]
Looks like right now. They had an image of it with three small Asian men standing on it. I believe I’ve seen a previous video of this with a guy actually riding it. It should still be on their YouTube channel.
nickandbro 6 hours ago [-]
Very cool tech, but don’t want one of these things coming after me
SilverElfin 18 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?
saturn8601 15 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.
bijowo1676 14 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 ?
londons_explore 3 hours ago [-]
Steal info from 10 different companies, and combine it to make a product better than any of the 10 individual products copied.
It's basically the patent problem.
bijowo1676 2 hours ago [-]
US patents do not have extra-territorial power, meaning US patent means nothing outside its borders, unless there are mutual reciprocity agreements (mostly between US and its vassal puppet states).
To my knowledge, China has never been caught infringing on US patents on US soil. A lot of Chinese innovations are simply orders of magnitude better than any US alternative, for example TikTok's algorithm and TikTok as a short-video social network.
So please answer my question, how could China steal anything that either 1) Western companies explicitly granted as part of Joint Venture corporation, 2) Western companies havent even developed themselves, and at best, only possess inferior version, generation or two behind the state of the art?
in IP realm, India for example forcefully nationalizes all pharmaceutical IP and produces generics of brand name drugs for its internal market (1970 Patents Act)
55555 8 hours ago [-]
The answer to both your questions, and the poster's obvious implication, is that somehow they stole information from Boston Dynamics. (I'm not saying I believe that.) Seems like they must've stolen the information at the exact point in time when advances in AI made these physical robots much more easy for anyone to engineer without theft...
yonatan8070 13 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.
xyzsparetimexyz 11 hours ago [-]
Idk about work ethic, but what are the chances it's a 996 company?
numpad0 15 hours ago [-]
There's no use for these robots(even militarily). It's very high tech, but that's it.
walrus01 6 hours ago [-]
You say that now, but wait until one of these is charging at you across a field with a QBZ-95 strapped to its back and a 1024 resolution thermal sensor.
numpad0 4 hours ago [-]
I'd be more scared of MQ-9 dropping a JDAM or R9X on my head than this thing running around. They're proven to be undetectable to human targets. That's scarier to me than this thing running around catching wires and bushes.
dyauspitr 4 hours ago [-]
I’m just a regular person and even I can see use for this where it carries all my gear on a very long hike or when I go camping. I’m sure that alone would be extremely valuable to any military. Also, not everything is aerially accessible. Lots of tight spaces in urban combat where you need to get get inside structures and interact with physical things like doors that drones just don’t have the physical strength for and probably never will.
grumbel 13 hours ago [-]
Veho[1] is experimenting[2] with similar kinds of robots for package delivery.
You are assuming this thing is real and not just a web page.
fooker 17 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.
rlt 18 hours ago [-]
Unitree is a huge well known company. You think they'd fake this?
solarkraft 17 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.
serf 16 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.
fragmede 15 hours ago [-]
What does unitree G1 do as a demo that it can't do once you bought one?
cyanydeez 18 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.
ThirdShift_RnD 16 hours ago [-]
This thing reminds me of something out of Death stranding, Hideo Kojima was way ahead of his time
jimmcslim 14 hours ago [-]
You might also say that about Terry Pratchett… see Twoflower and The Luggage.
ThirdShift_RnD 12 hours ago [-]
Man, this looks like a great read, Thanks!
lostmsu 18 hours ago [-]
What's the price?
IshKebab 16 hours ago [-]
Based on the price of their other robots, probably $5-10k.
yonatan8070 13 hours ago [-]
The 5-10k$ 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
tamimio 13 hours ago [-]
I tried Unitree qugv and they were garbage, not so sure about this one
yigalirani 17 hours ago [-]
imagine that a an atv
ThirdShift_RnD 16 hours ago [-]
Motorized mule essentially, but one that clears terrain like a mountain goat.
Just like in a year or two you will start to see more appendages than just two arms on humanoids.
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.
Literally we have a very old saying that is "don't reinvent the wheel" and yet people persist in doing so, when an already near optimal design exists.
I'm not saying don't do anything new and novel but that if a large portion of the design has already been done for you and you can improve it, like this company has done (wheels on the end of legs!), why not try that first and see if it works before starting over.
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.
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.
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 ?
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.
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 ?
It's basically the patent problem.
To my knowledge, China has never been caught infringing on US patents on US soil. A lot of Chinese innovations are simply orders of magnitude better than any US alternative, for example TikTok's algorithm and TikTok as a short-video social network.
So please answer my question, how could China steal anything that either 1) Western companies explicitly granted as part of Joint Venture corporation, 2) Western companies havent even developed themselves, and at best, only possess inferior version, generation or two behind the state of the art?
in IP realm, India for example forcefully nationalizes all pharmaceutical IP and produces generics of brand name drugs for its internal market (1970 Patents Act)
[1] https://www.shipveho.com/rivr
[2] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/d6jU_4XjkTU
Not doing acrobatics like the marketing video of course, just doing mundane things like going from point A to point B.
unitree has done this consistently.
The other half is yes, of course, any company will fake it till they make it.
But Unitree is definitely making robots.