Apptronik and Google DeepMind Accelerate Humanoid Robot Production Apollo 2 Training Facility
In Focus
- Robot Park houses a fleet of Apollo 2 humanoid robots
- Apollo 2 can collect diverse data across different environments and tasks
- Google DeepMind uses the data collected to train and improve Gemini Robotics
Robotics firm Apptronik has opened a new training facility, Robot Park. The new facility will serve as the company’s data collection and training center for humanoid robots. Apptronik has also unveiled the Apollo 2 humanoid robot, which is available in both bipedal and wheeled-base configurations.
What is Apptronik’s Apollo 2 Humanoid Robot?
Apollo 2 is a multi-purpose AI-powered humanoid robot that has served as the primary platform at Robot Park for over a year. The robot is designed for real-world work, and they learn through large-scale data collection. Using Apollo 2 humanoid robot, Apptronik can collect diverse data across different environments and tasks.
“The modular design of Apollo is a direct response to customer demand for adaptable automation. By developing Apollo as a modular platform, we’re able to deploy the same core humanoid technology across different configurations, including wheeled robots that align with current industrial safety standards, and bipedal robots for maximum adaptability,” Apptronik’s Chief Commercial Officer, Barry Phillips said in a company statement.
Apptronik developed Robot Park in collaboration with Google DeepMind to take robots from pilot to full-scale production. Google DeepMind uses the high-quality data collected by Apollo 2 humanoid robots to train and improve Gemini Robotics for real-world tasks. Gemini Robotics are Google DeepMind’s foundational AI models for robotics.
What Will be Happening at the Robot Park?
The new Robot Park will serve as Apptronik’s robot training hub. Humanoid robots require huge amounts of real-world data to train the AI models that enable them to operate autonomously. Apptronik plans to generate most of this data in its newly expanded robot training facility in Austin, Texas.
“The industry has spent years showing what robots can do in demos. We’re focused on what they can do every day on the job. What we’re building is a continuous learning loop with the Google DeepMind Robotics team: robots working, collecting data, and improving with every cycle, in real environments, on real tasks. Robot Park enables the data collection that is fuel for that, and Apollo 2 is the machine that makes it possible,” Apptronik CEO and Co-founder, Jeff Cardenas said.
Inside the humanoid robot training facility, Apptronik’s Apollo 2 robots will learn from a wide range of customer use cases as they complete tasks across manufacturing, logistics, retail, and other customer-driven activities.
As part of scaling real-world experiences, the humanoid robots will collect data across workflows in other Robot Parks. These include research partner locations such as Google DeepMind and customer sites like GXO and Mercedes-Benz.
What Robot Park Means for Humanoid Robot Adoption
Robot Park could accelerate the adoption of humanoid robots by providing the training needed to improve their performance and reliability. Last year, NVIDIA announced plans to deploy humanoid robots for AI server production at Foxconn’s Houston plant. As robots become better at handling everyday tasks in industries, companies will likely be more willing to move from pilot programs to large-scale deployments.
