Humanoids: a product challenge before a technological one

A new revolution is necessary for humanoids to enter the industry, and we are still far from it.

Pareto optimal rule states that 20% of something contributes to 80% of the results. It is a very interesting result that Pareto observed in several fields like botanicals and land ownership.

Because of the intrinsic concept of the statement, it's easy to be amazed at something doing well most of the time. We have seen robots from figure.ai, Tesla and others begin to deploy in industry, but it's not clear where the technological advancement hands over the torch to the publicity stunt.

Regardless of the complexity of controlling a humanoid, the tasks also represent a challenge. In industry, making something 80% of the time is not acceptable. The costs would be unbearable.

Moreover, it's not the first time that robotics have flooded the industry with new sources of automation.

In the '80s and '90s, manipulators invaded the industry by claiming precision and reliability. They looked the perfect replacement for certain tasks that require the same operation to be executed millions of times at great speed. Efficiency became the word of the game, and it sprang a revolution in how the processes were evaluated and administrated.

However, contrary to popular belief, the current humanoids are not a drop-in replacement for robotics arms. The reliability is simply not there yet. In exchange, they provide flexibility, which is an important aspect for many tasks that are difficult to automate with the current tools.

In this new phase, we ask more from the companies adopting robotics. The industry must be committed to the change even before revolutionising itself. We need the data from real settings to improve the performance even before we obtain a viable product.

Convincing an environment entirely based on ROI to embark on such investment is challenging. Shining demos won't endure long, and hard numbers will surface quickly.

We must frame the product "humanoid" in the right light so that it addresses real issues. This is where the real challenge for this technology lies and the true ground where robotics companies will battle in the next years. We'll see how the different players will manage to handle the situation!