ObotX seeks partners for new robot it says equals humanoid capability

By Mike Oitzman | August 16, 2024

A major concern about humanoid robots is their expense, but mobile manipulators provide an alternative. ObotX has patented a unique kinematic that provides a similar range of motion to a dual-armed, humanoid robot, but at a much lower price point. The company is looking for partners to take “Elon” to market.

ObotX offers its system with an open-source license that makes all content, patents, drawings, instructions, and software, free to use for personal and research purposes. It is working on an official website and plans to make a commercial license available on a royalty basis.

Humanoid robots will be expensive

The humanoid robot market has matured at a rapid pace over the last two years. High-profile product launches included those of Agility Robotics, Tesla, Boston Dynamics, Figure AI, Apptronik, Unitree, and Sanctuary AI.

All of these companies’ robots are currently expensive and their utility is still unproven. A humanoid can have more than 25 motors/actuators and over 30 degrees of freedom.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has claimed that his company will get Optimus below $20,000. He said that that once humanoids are available at this price point, they will become ubiquitous. Today, most humanoids are coming to market costing over $100,000.

A similar example is industrial autonomous mobile robots (AMRs). Most of these systems have two drive motors and are listed for more than $40,000.

It currently seems unlikely that humanoid developers will soon be able to achieve a list price of $20,000 and a respective bill of materials (BOM) of less than $10,000 (at 50% margin). These price points will not be possible until these systems are produced in the hundreds of thousands of units.

Register now and save.

ObotX claims similar functionality with less complexity

ObotX has designed its mobile manipulation system with inexpensive linear and rotary actuators on top of an AMR. It asserted that its platform can deliver a similar range of motion and actuation to that of a humanoid.

The company said that integrating fewer actuators will help to bring down the BOM cost. Not only does ObotX’s kinematic design have fewer actuators, but it can also take advantage of maturing AMRs, which don’t require bipedal agility for many use cases. 

ObotX provides more information about Elon at its Patreon site.