There are many controversies surrounding Tesla’s Optimus robot—starting with the press conference a few years ago that used a real person disguised as Optimus, and more recently the controversy over Optimus being controlled by human operators. Despite the ongoing debates, Optimus continues to release updates on its latest progress, and every status update shows new changes to Optimus (though there have also been accusations of deception). Not long ago, in October, Optimus was able to deliver different items to users based on their needs. Yesterday, Tesla officially announced the latest news about Optimus. The current Optimus now has more flexible degrees of freedom and can catch balls in real time, making it the only humanoid robot capable of catching balls. Musk also stated that in the future, Optimus will become something like your personal C-3PO and R2-D2.
Tesla Optimus Robot’s New Progress: 22-Degree-of-Freedom Arm and Real-Time Ball-Catching Capability
Yesterday, Tesla released new updates about Optimus. Optimus said it got new hands on Black Friday and demonstrated that it can now perform real-time ball-catching commands and actions.
Got a new hand for Black Friday pic.twitter.com/x3gQrsbYAQ
— Tesla Optimus (@Tesla_Optimus) November 28, 2024
Optimus’sEngineerRegarding the latest progress on Optimus, engineers said that they have now installed new arms and new hands on Optimus. Optimus’s hands now have 22 degrees of freedom, and the wrist and forearm together have three joints, giving Optimus better hand manipulation capabilities.
The scene of Optimus catching the ball in real time in the video was actually filmed live in the lab with Optimus being operated via remote control. (Perhaps worried about being accused of faking it again, this time they just came out and said it was remote-controlled.)
The engineer said there is still work to be done on Optimus before the end of the year, such as adding more tactile sensors to Optimus’s hands to enable finer hand control. In addition, the engineer also mentioned the need to reduce the weight of Optimus’s forearms by moving all the actuators for the hands into the forearms. Most importantly, they need to provide sufficient softness and protective layers for Optimus’s fingers and palms without excessively affecting Optimus’s tactile sensing.
Meanwhile, Musk responded to Optimus’s future positioning, saying that Optimus will become something like C-3PO and R2-D2 from Star Wars, leaving it unclear whether this hints that the Optimus robot will combine language interaction with practical functions.
Optimus will be like having your own personal C-3PO & RD-D2 https://t.co/0XgItDZE6S
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 28, 2024
Source: KOCPC Chinese