New Tesla Optimus robot video clears We Robot event doubts

Tesla has published a new video for the Optimus humanoid robot, showing some new capabilities inside the manufacturing facility.

The bot can now walk confidently, its torso, legs, and hand movements are more synchronized to create a chained walk cycle than before.

The bot has learned how to explore unseen spaces autonomously and avoid people and objectest in the way with neural nets running in its onboard computer in real-time.

During a walk or navigating through obstacles, the bot captures visual cues specific to its environment. Multiple Optimus robots can map the surroundings with these cues and use them as a complete map of the structure with shared understanding.

It has learned to locate the nearest charging station, navigate to the location, and dock autonomously at the precise charging head using its rear cameras. Once charged, the bot returns to work.

Tesla Optimus Robot Docked at Charging Station (Source – Tesla)

With the new upgrade, Optimus can pick up increased payload capacity. The video demonstrates the bot picking up battery cells from the conveyor belt and placing them in a tray, which weighs 11kg. Then it carried this tray to a different place.

For the first time, Tesla showed us Optimus’ non-flat surface walk AKA stair climb ability. This is a new ability that the bot has received recently.

Tesla Optimus Robot Climbing Stairs (Source – Tesla)

This portion of the video shows us Optimus interacting with people. We’ve seen similar interactions during the We Robot event.

The robot can now detect unsafe behaviors such as touch. However, it can complete requests to hand over items to the person in front.

Tesla said these requests and behaviors are processed in real-time inside the onboard computer. New behavioral changes are also improved by a single neural net.

Navigating by myself pic.twitter.com/CeFSqCcy5I

— Tesla Optimus (@Tesla_Optimus) October 17, 2024

We Robot Event

Some guests who interacted with Optimus at the 10/10 event were saying the company has tele-operated Optimus. In other words, the company has used humans to control these robots using AR/VR headsets.

Tesla conducts such practices to train Optimus’s computing system and it could be possible to ensure maximum safety around visitors.

However, the new demonstration video shows that the robot can do those things without being teleoperated. Still, we have to see a live demonstration to confirm Optimus’ new capabilities.